


A Heart of Blades||Cannot Break

by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)



Category: Sword Art Online, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Abuse of Gaming Terminology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Katsuki Yuuri, BAMF Yuuki Asuna, Big Brother Kirito, Canon-Typical Romance, Character Study, Charisma Cooties Kirito, Confident Katsuki Yuuri, Controlled Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gaming Terminology, Help it's a monster fic in the making, Identity Reveal, In that Yuuri being a Clearer for most of his time in SAO changes his mental state severely, M/M, Minor Stream of Consciousness, Miscommunication, Multi, No one knows Yuuri was in SAO except the people in Hasetsu, Podium Family, Poor yurio, Romance, Since apparently this warrants a proper warning, Single POV, Single Person Narrative, Smitten Victor Nikiforov, Sort of anyway, Supportive Victor Nikiforov, Team as Family, Unreliable Narrator, Vicchan Lives, Victor and Yuuri are absolute saps guys, cavity inducing fluff, severe anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-13 04:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10506549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortescryche/pseuds/Adel%20Mortescryche
Summary: In which Yuuri was a Clearer in SAO, and this... Changes things.(Or the one in which Yuuri decides to try gaming on a whim when he's thirteen, manages to get his hands on SAO, and has to live with its impact and fallout for the rest of his life.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings at the bottom, as usual** , along with author's notes and other in-fic notes/thoughts that you can check out. Just follow the numbers.
> 
> Also, assume that the timeline is massively shifted backwards for SAO, and Kirito is an year _older_ than Yuuri. Events proceed in line with canon for SAO otherwise - YOI is the one with canon divergence.
> 
> Shout out to **Lemon_Dropz** for being a terrible enabler. If it weren't for her, this might just have stayed a little note on my cellphone and never have gotten written.

There are certain things that one doesn’t choose to share with their significant other. Or even with their closest friends. These pieces of information run the gamut from the miniscule to earth shattering, from something as simple as not liking the taste of a specific kind of fruit to potentially being the key witness in a murder trial.

Yuuri would like to insist that his secret isn’t anywhere near as melodramatic. He hardly thinks of it as a secret at all; all it is, is a facet of his past that he wants forgotten. By anyone except for him. Having lived it, he can’t deny that the experience is something that made him the person he is, but it’s simultaneously the kind of experience that he feels embarrassed to bring up. If only because it tends to invite pity. The only time it doesn’t invite pity, it invited social distaste instead.

Having been hell bent on returning to the competitive skating circuit after an unforeseen break of two years, Yuuri had decided early on that he didn’t need the drama. Where initially the omission had been unintended, occasional forays into the world of SNS and online forums had warned him well in advance that it would be a terrible idea to broadcast that part of his past. Especially as a child still struggling with physical therapy and attempting to catch up to studies and classes that seemed alien on the best of days to him after his…  _Break_.

He’d been tremendously lucky, having gone through the experience in Hasetsu. And being a Katsuki. His father’s clan had owned Yu-Topia over multiple generations, they were a fixture in the town. And everyone loved his parents. He and Mari were lucky enough to share a large part of that love solely by virtue of being the children of the onsen - it meant that Yuuri was never shunned the way some of the people he’d known were shunned in Tokyo and other parts of the country.

In spite of the terror that quaked in him at the thought of needing to face that kind of social discrimination, never let it be said that Yuuri couldn’t count his blessings. At least when it came to this. He took the good wishes of the people in town, kept his head down, and trained his heart out to pay them back. Even if a large part of that training was him trying to return to the world, the real world, with ice under his blades and actually feeling the chill of the air and experiencing different seasons all over again.

Blades back under his feet, where they _belonged_. Not in his hands. Flying across the ice, feeling the physical strain in his muscles and limbs, feeling strength augmented by daily exercise and remembering how it felt to believe in it without swiping the fingers of his right hand through the air and automatically calling up a status bar to check-

*

There is a _reason_ Yuuri never tells anyone that he survived SAO when he he’d just turned thirteen. That he’d been locked into the death game as a noob who knew nothing about gaming in general, just out to take a break from constantly training day in and day out, tired of having no time to breathe between ballet and ballroom dancing and skating and school. He’d heard the more tech-savvy boys in his class gushing about it and had wanted, for once in his life, to enjoy something more normal, something other boys his age wanted to do in their spare time.

It had been a weak moment. One that Yuuri never stopped cursing himself for, not once in the two years that followed.

Yuuri had been a dime-a-dozen Japanese pre-teen, fooled along with so many other, older and better people by Kayaba Akihiko.

He doesn’t tell anyone he’d been involved in the entire episode. He’d rather be judged for his skating skills and his performance on the ice, and he judges himself on how much closer he’s gotten to Victor, chasing his shadow in desperation, having spent lonely nights in Aincrad nauseated by the thought of his body wasting away in a hospital bed Outside.

He doesn’t find it important to tell anyone that he survived the death game. SAO didn’t make him.

It certainly didn’t break him.

*

That said, while Yuuri never called attention to what he considered his ‘dark past’, even darker than some of his crazier costume and program ideas as a junior skater, he _had_ learnt to accept that some things, once learnt, weren’t easily forgotten or set aside.

He learnt that the hard way, throwing a pen hard enough to slam it through a bull’s eye on the other side of the class. It had just been a stupid dare, the kind of thing teenage boys did to kill time. Yuuri had been trying to mind his own business, putting his books away after class and hunting for his _bento_ , wondering if Takeshi and Yuu-chan would have the time to eat together when they were already in the high school building, when someone slammed their hands into his desk.

Instinct made him want to swing the heavy text book still in his hands right through the ambushing mob’s head. Rigorous retraining in social niceties made him control the reflex to instead duck down and hide the twisting expression on his face.

Glancing up eventually brought him face to chest with one of the louder boys in class. This might have been enough to make him cringe back if the boy weren’t also one of the _friendlier_ boys in class, who didn’t begrudge Yuuri his friendship with their _senpai_ and didn’t mock him for being an year older than the rest of them. Yuuri still isn’t quite sure how it happened; one thing led to another, and he found himself playing darts with pens and pencils and a sheet of paper stuck against the classroom door.

It should have been impossible, but apparently muscle memory trained through roughly twenty months in a death game didn’t go anywhere. Yuuri stared, just about as disbelieving as the rest of his classmates when his pen actually managed to hit _and stay._

“ _K’so_ , it’s half an inch in!”

“What _?!_ “

“How’d you manage that, Katsuki?!”

“Wow _._ “

Yuuri hadn’t stopped to talk. He’d ducked into an embarrassed bow, rushed back to his bag, snatched up his _bento_ and _ran._ Not without jerking the pen out of the door, though. It was better for everyone if he didn’t leave the evidence still struck through the scene of the crime.

There had only been four people still in class to witness his momentarily abnormal precision and physical strength. They were kind enough to not spread rumors. Yuuri proceeded to avoid talking to everyone, no matter who it was, for the rest of the year.

Later that same day, though, long after he’d rushed back home to hide in his room, refusing to talk to anyone no matter who it was, he’d waited till the bustle of the onsen had sunk into the quiet of slumber, late in the night. And then, he’d snuck into the kitchen on kitten feet, his stealth skill holding good somehow even in the real world. Possibly a combination of experience accumulated under the weirdest of circumstances (read: death game VRMMORPGs) and knowing the floorboards of his home inside out.

Finding knives that actually had the right weight amongst his mother’s collection had been the work of minute or two. Taking them out to the yard and finding a tree that wouldn’t attract too much attention was another minute. Ruining his mother’s blades by throwing them with frightening accuracy at that tree, though, was the work of an entire night, spent with a static-filled mind focused on nothing but honing his edge.

Mari, stepping out the next morning to sneak a cigarette when their parents and their patrons wouldn’t catch her, had gotten the shock of her life, seeing him curled up under a tree with knives clutched in his hands.

*

Bladework still came easy to him, even years after the fact. Yuuri still couldn’t pull off all of his old skills, not without the help of the system, but a large part of what he’d done day in and day out had sunk into his muscles as surely as dance and skating had.

It was very difficult to not go hunting for knives of some sort to stand in for his beloved set of daggers, though. He consoled himself with the thought that at least he had easy access to the kind of knives one bought at a store, especially after he moved into his own place in Detroit. His parents had been very supportive, but watching him run though kata, or more appropriately the equivalent of training exercises that SAO had provided them with, had worried his parents a lot when he’d been younger1. Less for what he was doing and more for the fact that it would keep his mind occupied with his life in Aincrad, something that every therapist asked to discuss the death game had firmly prescribed against.

Yuuri hadn’t been sure why, back then. Even if he hadn’t been one of the people so lost to Aincrad that returning to the real world had disillusioned them, Yuuri knew enough of himself and of the people he’d lived and worked with for two years to in w that denying their experience in Aincrad wouldn’t help anyone. Two years seemed like a drop in the ocean of time, but to Yuuri at barely a month after his thirteenth birthday, two years had been nearly twenty percent of the number of years he’d already been alive.

To the people that had lived it, Aincrad was as much a real place as any other, in the world. It was probably in bad taste, getting too lost in those old memories, but Yuuri could never do that. He had too much to live for, too much to work towards, and he’d already lost two years of training time. In the years he’d been separated from the world of figure skating, Victor had gotten so much better that watching the Senior GPF that year covered in blankets and still feeling weak had left him  _reeling_ , nearly unable to breathe with the breadth of the emotion unfolding in his chest.

*

(He’d doubted himself, once. Just once. A little over an year into SAO and he’d begun to doubt all his memories of the real world, and he’d found himself idly wondering if Victor Nikiforov was someone he’d dreamt up, whose skating was so unearthly in the faint memories in his head that he couldn’t possibly be real. On days like those, the real world as a whole seemed unreal in the face of needing to fight every day, and train, and train some more, edging his way up in levels because there was no other way to stay alive and stay sharp.

He’d hated himself for the doubt right after, for doubting _Victor_ , who had done nothing wrong. And had thrown himself at a dungeon that had been far too high for him, back then, had nearly died in the aftermath of his reckless urge to punish himself. The only reason he didn’t die was the kindness of a passing solo swordsman, having heard the altercation and having come past just to check and make sure everything was okay.)

*

For all that he lived so far away from Tokyo, and away from where all the acquaintances he’d made were most likely to be admitted in hospitals, a few of them managed to track him down anyway. Specifically Argo-san, who initially demanded a payment to keep his location a secret from the rest of Kirito’s little group, then sheepishly offered him a discount when Yuuri incredulously asked how she expected him to pay her anything as an elementary school student.

Apparently the legendary cut-throat mercantile sensibilities of Argo the Rat were alive and well even in the real world.

He’d managed to wrangle promises of not sharing his location with anyone, though she _did_ confess that Kirito would probably figure it out whether either of them wanted him to or not. Yuuri had to agree with her on that – Kirito-nii had always managed to track down the people he watched over, whether they liked it or not. Yuuri had never been as close to the rest of the clearers who banded around Kirito, he was too uncomfortable in such a large group, but that had never stopped Kirito or his wife from welcoming Yuuri into the fold. And that meant Yuuri was very much one of the people whom Kirito kept an eye on, irrespective of whether Yuuri was willing to admit it out loud or not.

Yuuri had usually found himself bowing in the face of Kirito-nii’s doting, though. Being saved from certain death tended to inure you to your savior. And if that savior was the infamous Black Swordsman of Aincrad, well… There was a reason there were so many whispered rumors about Kirito’s offhand ability to slay unsuspecting players with his charisma. Yuuri hadn’t stood a chance, not when the older boy had been so willing to entertain not only his panic attacks but also respecting Yuuri’s at times desperate need for silence and space.

So Argo had finally let Yuuri get with secured promises to not tell anyone anything, but she _did_ offer to share her mailing address and cell phone number with Yuuri. All of which she passed on free of charge, for once, which had been a relief. Returning to a world where you couldn’t earn money by taking down monsters had been jarring, to Yuuri. And presumably to everyone else who’d gotten used to being completely self-sufficient. Even if Yuuri was terribly relieved to be to be out, he had to admit that he missed being fully self-sufficient – a self-sufficiency that he hadn’t been able to fully return to until years later, when he moved out of Hasetsu and to Detroit.

 “It’s probably better that I don’t tell anyone where you are yet,” she’d said, right after Yuuri had threatened to cut the line. “Aa-chan’s still in a coma, along with close to three hundred other players.”

“What?” Yuuri had whispered, horrified, his hands clenching around the phone reflexively. He’d been trying to distract her, and trying to get off the line as soon as he possibly could because Argo _scared_ him sometimes, no matter how seriously Kirito-nii had insisted she had good intentions at heart. But this was more important than the terror she inspired.

“Kii-bou’s been worried. Agil and I have been looking into things for him, and I’ve been doing research separately because it’s not right that they’re all still not out. Kii-bou would say that the game hasn’t ended till everyone’s awake and back to their real lives, right. So… I wanted to help…” she ended softly, and Yuuri had shivered just a bit before he forced himself to straighten up.

“You’re doing the best you can, Argo-san. I’m sure Kirito-nii knows that.” He’d said, as seriously as he could.

Argo had been silent, and for a long moment, Yuuri had felt like he was back at the boss meetings, faced with people who weren’t quite sure if he could really take care of himself. Yuuri hadn’t blamed them, honestly. Because he’d been _tiny._ He’d stayed tiny all the way till he hit fifteen, when he shot up like a beanpole.  It had wreaked havoc on his skating ability, since he’d needed to get used to a body that didn’t feel anything like his own, and he’d been forced to take most of a season off just to get his bearings back. But back when he’d been stuck in the months between twelve and thirteen, Yuuri had easily been the youngest and the tiniest player in the boss meetings, and saying anything at all had left him feeling oddly like an adult and a child stuck in the same frame, because while the other, older players had been willing to listen to what he had to say seriously, they’d always looked a little surprised to have him present beside them as a peer.

The illusion shattered when Argo gave a sudden snicker, and Yuuri felt his cheeks _burn_ when she had finally spoken up.

“Nihihi, Kii-bou was right, Yuuri-chan! You’re so _sweet.”_

“A- _Argo-san!”_ Yuuri had complained, making her snicker with audible delight.

“Just for that I’ll let you know if I find anything out, free of charge!”

Yuuri had paused for a moment, and suspiciously asked _what,_ exactly, she’d offer free of charge. Since she was being a little too nice, even for a dash of sentiment.

“Oh, just if I find Aa-chan,” she’d replied, and had finally cut the line herself with another nasally little laugh.

Yuuri had been left staring at the phone, wondering if he should be worried or not.

*

Things had gotten relatively clear a while after, when the RECT Progress scandal had come out. Yuuri had been left staring at the TV screen, shaken, and more than a little relieved that he hadn’t gotten involved in any more games, no matter how tempting the stories about independent flying with wings in a VRMMORPG had been. Yuuri had learnt his lesson about listening to the stories of his classmates the first time around.

He’s relieved Asuna-san and Kirito had gotten out of the mess okay, though. For all that nothing had been said about either of them in the news, something told Yuuri that that was only because they were still minors. However… _odd_ it was, to think of them as being too young to be named in the news. Yuuri didn’t even need a confirmation of his suspicions, though Argo had been kind enough to give him a ring and let him know that Kirito and the others were safe. Something about her tone told him there was more to the story, but he rather pointedly didn’t ask. He didn’t want to be charged, after all. And Yuuri could tell that the only reason Argo was being kind enough to call and not just mail the information to him, as she must have mailed general messages to anyone from SAO who deserved to know, was because Kirito-nii had watched out for Yuuri a lot, towards the end.

Yuuri had tried to do the same. He’d been young, younger than anyone else in the Clearers, and had still been struggling to figure out the Unique Skill the system had seen fit to give him, but that didn’t mean he was willing to be taken care of with no returns. That ‘him’ had been left behind to die back on the lower floors, when Yuuri had decided to grit his teeth and step into the wilds outside the Town of Beginnings on his own with only his starter gear to protect him.

He’d nearly died that first day out. And nearly died a whole bunch of times after. He’d spent nights camped out in trees and shaking when he hadn’t been careful and got stuck out too late to circle back, with mobs that were too high-levelled for him to beat roaming the field beneath him. But he’d managed, somehow, till he had enough mats and experience under his belt to get better gear.

No, Yuuri didn’t need to be taken care of at all, not by Kirito or anyone else. But… Kirito-nii had made it _easier,_ back then. Watching out for him ever since he’d caught Yuuri solo grinding in the dungeons before the first boss battle they’d actually been in together.

Yuuri had demanded to know why he was getting special treatment, once. Just once, when Kirito had tagged along on one too many side quests and trips out into dungeons for no other given reason than ‘being bored’ or ‘being in the area by coincidence’. Yuuri hadn’t been suspicious in the beginning, and had even been willing to let it slide the first fifteen times because Kirito had actually been the least patronizing clearer-level player Yuuri had encountered, on the higher floors. But he’d had to snap at some point. And he’d been embarrassingly close to tears, because he’d thought Kirito-nii was _different,_ that he _trusted_ Yuuri to know his own limits, and Kirito… had smiled. Painfully awkwardly. And said that Yuuri reminded him of his younger sister outside. And of some kids that he’d taken under his wing, once, guild members on a lower floor.

He hadn’t needed to say anything more about the guild members. The darkness in his eyes before he turned his gaze away had been enough to tell Yuuri that none of those kids had survived.

And so, Yuuri had caved. And suffered himself to be babied, every once in a while, if only because it seemed to make something in the older boy relax just that little bit. Yuuri hadn’t been all that close to the rest of Kirito’s friends, or to anyone else in the game, but even he had to admit that his bond with Kirito had been strong enough to last even after they’d all been freed.

He admitted to it. But that didn’t mean he was actually ready to talk to him immediately, or anyone else from SAO. Not yet, not when Yuuri had _finally_ come to a point where he was skating somewhere near his ability before SAO and before his body had changed.

Argo-san was a cheating cheat who didn’t count, because even if she’d managed to track him down all on her own, Argo-san was called Argo the _Rat_ for a very good reason. She’d been considered the best informant SAO, and from what he’d heard even a majority of _other_ MMOs, had seen so he couldn’t say he was _surprised_ that she’d managed to find him.

But he’d feel so much safer if he could reconnect to other players on his own terms.

…not that he didn’t think Kirito-nii wouldn’t track him down all on his own, at some point. And if he didn’t have the patience to look on his own, he’d probably pay to get the info from Argo-san - she’d give it to him, too. Once she decided Yuuri had spent enough time getting his life together, she’d revoke the nastily high price she claimed to have put on his location.

But Yuuri would deal with that impending meeting of his two worlds when it actually happened. In the meantime, he had owed it to both his family and to all the people who’d died in those two years in SAO to actually pay attention to the things that mattered in his life. And that meant focusing on school, on his RL friends and family who’d been worried sick about him and on his dream.

Surely Kirito-nii would understand that his dream of skating on the same ice as Victor Nikiforov was important enough to dedicate all his energy to increasing his skills as an ice skater. Or, at least, that it was just as important to Yuuri as clearing the Death Game and returning to RL had been, once.

*

…to be honest, Yuuri suspected Kirito would understand _exactly_ how important that dream was to him. He’d probably smile, pat him on the shoulder, and then proceed to tease him as viciously as Mari-nee had when Yuuri’s poster count had first reached double digits. He’d probably do it with a perfectly mild smile on his face too.

Silica-chan had shot him a pained glance the first and last time he’d brought up the subject of Kirito-nii’s mild-as-milk smiles and his nasty sense of humor. And he _still_ couldn’t tell why Agil-san and Klein-san had looked so amused2.

*

It takes Yuuri a while, and concentrated effort, but his efforts bear fruit when his body starts to feel a little more like his own, nine months after SAO had ended. The next time he speaks to the physiotherapist the hospital had assigned him, with his mom and Minako-sensei hovering in the background, she actually seemed serious when she’d smiled and said there was an excellent chance of Yuuri being able to succeed in his dream. The relief that hit him then had left him wet-eyed and faint, clinging to the arms of his chair while his mom squealed in delight and Minako-sensei burst into actual tears. They’d both thrown their arms around each other, incandescent enough in their joy that it had almost been too difficult for Yuuri to look back at them, instead focusing on the words of his doctor talking over the sounds of them whispering fervently to each other.

He’s been sticking only to doubles of everything, and training triples on his toe loop for the last month, but the doctor’s verdict means that Minako _finally_ relents and says he can start trying for triples in the other jumps. The triple axel had rather pointedly been kept off his regimen for obvious reasons, and it makes him complain more than once while he’s cooling down after a day of training. Minako-sensei weathers his grumbling for roughly a week before she slams a hand down against a bench at the rink, making him startle in the middle of a stretch.

“No means no,” she said, voice harsh. Yuuko’s mom, who’d been a junior-level figure skater in her youth before she’d thrown in the towel and who’d actually been responsible for Yuuri learning any jumps at all, nodded seriously from where she’d been seated on the same bench.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard, too fast, Yuuri-kun,” she said kindly, and Yuuri scowled down at the concrete by his right knee, still stretched out.

“This isn’t fast _enough._ How am I supposed to level up enough to try for the regionals if I don’t grind at all?”

He’d muttered the words mostly to himself, switching legs so he can stretch out his left side, but it takes him a few seconds to notice how unnaturally still and silent the two older women had gotten. When Yuuri actually looked up, wondering what had happened, he’d found both Minako and Yuuko’s mom staring at him, faces pale.

“What? What’d I say?” Yuuri had asked, uncomfortable.

They both traded glances before Minako-sensei sat down beside him, gingerly setting a hand on his back.

“What?” he repeated heatedly, because Minako was treating him like she thought he was going to break right there by the rink. And she hadn’t done anything of the sort since he’d first started physical therapy.

“It’s nothing, Yuuri-kun,” she said, voice soft, and bundled him up into a hug that smelt vaguely of perfume, smoke and plum wine. The combination was noxious enough that Yuuri had choked, trying to pull away, but he’d given in eventually. Because Minako-sensei was a force of nature, and even if he’d been in training to build muscle and start filling in his STR bar all over again, he wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to push her away from position of little to no leverage.

“You still have time,” Nishigori-san3 murmured, her voice just as gentle as Minako’s, “You don’t have to rush ahead all at once, even if you need to train. Take at least a full season so your body can adjust, Yuuri-kun. You’re still growing.”

The words make Yuuri stiffen even further in Minako-sensei’s grasp, because she had a point. Yuuri had been trying not to notice how his limbs seem to be growing in spite of two years of relative malnourishment, or how his voice cracks strangely when he least expects it. He’s growing hair in strange places, which honestly freaks him out more than a lot of other things because he’d gotten _used_ to the smooth, digitally rendered body he’d been in for two years – and his RL growth spurt had been making it all too obvious that bodies didn’t work that way.

About the only good thing about the timing of the growth spurt is that his body had already been at zero after coming out of SAO. He had ingrained muscle memory from those two years, or at least it _felt_ like he had ingrained muscle memory from those year for all that he’d never actually held a knife in hand until he’d woken up in RL. And it makes his ability with those knives a little shaky because his weight, height and reach are all changing slowly but surely – but the lack of actual muscle mass meant he was nearly relearning skating from the ground up. Nishigori-san had been impressed he’d been able to skate at all, when he’d managed to get himself to the rink after being stuck on his back for the first month or so out of SAO.

Yuuri _knew_ leveling up took time. It had taken him hours on end of grinding to get anywhere at the lower levels in Aincrad – and he’d been shunted back down to level one, now that SAO had ended. But the reality of it – the reality of needing to go slow and _waiting_ because his body was working against him, was next to impossible to swallow.

“But I need to level up,” he mumbled into Minako’s shoulder, hating how small his voice sounded.

Yuuri hadn’t been sure why she’d started shaking even with her arms tightly around him, but he’d patted her on the back anyway.

*

He’s _finally_ allowed to try for the regional championships right before his seventeenth birthday. The months leading up to Nishigori-san agreeing to sign him up as representing the Ice Castle had been difficult, particularly since she’d still wanted to give him more time to recover.

Even if he wouldn’t say anything about it out loud where someone could hear him, not after how Minako and Yuuko’s mom had reacted the one time he’d mentioned level grinding out loud, the longer he spent training the more it felt like he was preparing to immerse himself in a main quest. And even if it wasn’t exactly _right,_ to think of it that way, Yuuri really did feel like his dream was the main quest of his life, now that he’d well and truly settled back into RL. And if his dream was the main quest, it only made sense that to view the small-time exhibition skates that Nishigori-san and Minako had signed him up for, once he’d gotten better, as side quests. Right?

Yuuri had been at the end of his tether, because he’d spent a whole two years being completely in control of whether or not he immersed himself in a quest. And not being able to decide personally if he was ready to graduate from the side quests to the main quest for himself had made him increasingly agitated. Because it felt like being back at his first ever pre-battle meeting as a clearer, with nearly everyone in the room looking like the wanted to send him back out. He’d been a training junkie as bad as Kirito-nii, according to Asuna-san, and even _he_ was sick and tired of being forced to train without actually being able to see whether all his level grinding had borne fruit or not.

Yuu-chan had thankfully butted in before Yuuri had erupted about any of that out loud, though. For all that she’d grown older along with Takeshi when he wasn’t around to see it happen, she still seemed to understand him better than anyone else. And she’d been able to tell just how close to snapping he’d been. So Minako and Nishigori-san had finally relented, though they kept saying that he ‘shouldn’t feel bad if he didn’t do as well as he wanted to’ and that he ‘had to start somewhere’.

“I just want them to trust me when I say that I can do it. Not to try and make me feel better about myself.” Yuuri had said, once the forms had been mailed to the JSF.

Takeshi’s face had been screwed up in confusion, but he’d looked oddly understanding anyway, clapping Yuuri on the back and saying that they would figure it out when he actually got on the ice and whopped the competition’s ass. Yuuko had burst into giggles beside them, while Yuuri had flailed madly in place before giggling a bit himself.

The weeks leading up to the actual championship are… _odd,_ for Yuuri. And familiar in a way that he really hadn’t been expecting, when he’d been in training. They pass with an icy clarity, like the world he’s seeing is suddenly sharper than before, with each day making it harder to consciously eat food, to pay attention to other people and even to focus on anything other what he’s doing while practicing his jumps and his other program components while at the rink.

He didn’t notice just how his change of personality had alarmed his parents, not to mention Nishigori-san and Minako-sensei, until Mari cornered him one night at the rink.

“I don’t know what’s up with you,” Mari-nee said, her voice cutting through the dark and nearly making Yuuri crash back into the doors he’d just locked, “But you need to stop.”

It’s difficult to look back at her while simultaneously trying to ignore the way his brain was lurching, and the way his fingers were ticking, telling him to go for his menu and get a weapon out before it was too late, but he does it anyway. Because even if she’d sprung a surprise attack on him when he was least expecting it, this was Mari-nee. This was his _sister,_ not some mob trying to sneak up on him in the dark. 

From the wry look on her face, though, Yuuri didn’t think he’d quite managed to hide his reaction.

“Those are bad for you, y’know,” he muttered back, trying to lean casually against the doors.

Mari just raised her brows, her gaze shifting to the rink that was hidden behind the locked doors to his back, then back to meet his gaze. And exhaled another cloud of smoke, tapping out a bit of ash from the tip of her cigarette before bringing it back to her lips.  Yuuri wrinkled his nose at her, but he didn’t say anything. Point taken, Mari-nee.

“Kaa-san and Tou-san are getting worried, y’know.” She said, mild, her tone the exact same as his had been, and Yuuri actually winced, curling in a bit on himself.

“Why would they be worried? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

He mumbled the words out, but even as he said them, he knew he didn’t actually mean them. His parents had seen him get anxious before exams, and in the novice championships when he’d been younger, but even Yuuri knew the way his anxiety affected him had changed since SAO. He’d seen the signs, but he’d been trying to ignore them until Mari had decided to corner him.

Mari stared him down, first looking incredulous and then her brows slowly furrowed as she straightened, her arm lowering to hang by her side.

“…Yuuri. You haven’t been eating.” She said slowly, sounding like she was trying to avoid setting him off. It made him frown back, irate.

“I know I haven’t been eating as much as usual, but-”

“Yuuri, you haven’t eaten _all of today.”_

That? That made him stiffen in surprise. He tried to think back to when he’d eaten last, because surely it hadn’t gotten that bad, but he realized with a sinking feeling that he couldn’t actually remember.

Mari was beginning to look a little horrified, and it was disturbing to see that expression on his sister’s face. Not when Mari-nee had been one of the most composed people he’d ever known his entire life. She was like a rock in the center of the ocean, you could try weathering her down but she wouldn’t _ever_ move.

“I was there when you ate breakfast yesterday, but you were gone for the rest of the day. And you went to bed soon after you got back home. And I know I saw you skip breakfast a few times before yesterday, but- _Yuuri_ -”

“I’ve been eating!” Yuuri snapped back, but no. No, he hadn’t been eating nearly as much as a person should, back in RL.

He’s a little horrified himself, now that he’s actually trying to break it down inside his head. Yuuri had skipped meals across the days leading up to a boss battle while in Aincrad, since it had felt like a waste of col to spend it on food when he could spent it on gear and healing crystals, or any mats he might need to upgrade his pre-existing gear if he happened to run low right before they needed to go in. He’d always made sure to get a good meal in to boost his stats right before the main battle, but- he didn’t think he’d been-

This was RL. He knew this. He _knew_ it, so why-?

He jerked upright when he felt hands on his shoulders, and when he looked up, it was to find Mari leaning in, her cigarette no longer in sight and the worry plain in her eyes.

“I need to get you home,” she whispered, and Yuuri flinched away. She dragged him back close for a hug, though.

“Does Minako-sensei know?” he asked in a tiny voice.

Because that was more important than anything else. If Minako-sensei knew he’d been skipping meals leading up to the championship, she might decide he wasn’t ready enough to compete. Not when there was even a miniscule possibility that he’d do well and get seeded into an international event. It was all or nothing, with Minako-sensei – once she’d agreed to let him apply for the championships she’d decided to treat it as a full skating season, international events included, and had begun to work with Nishigori-san to train him accordingly.

Mari took in a deep breath, but she let it out without saying anything. She didn’t actually need to say what was on her mind, though. Yuuri knew her well enough to hear the ‘ _that isn’t what’s important, little brother’_ that was on her mind.

She just hugged him tighter, and tucked him under her arm to lead him back home. Yuuri let her sit him down in the kitchen afterwards, quietly calling out instructions while she prepared a pot of rice porridge for him. It didn’t sound all that appetizing, but her claim that it would be light and easy on his stomach made him remain silent.

“I’ll sit with you. And remind you if you forget.” She offered levelly, later.

Yuuri considered that, chewing slowly, and then set his chopsticks down before bowing his head in thanks. His sister rolled her eyes before letting her gaze drop back to the magazine she was curled up with on the other side of the table, but Yuuri could easily see the smile tucked into the corner of her lips.

*

The trip to Okayama with Minako-sensei isn’t all that worrying, and from the soft smile that’s been on Minako’s face since they actually set out, Yuuri could tell she was… proud of him, for what it was worth. Proud of how well he was handling himself.

Yuuri didn’t think he was handling himself all that well at all. There was worry building in his gut, heavy and inexorable. It made him feel like the world was slowing down, possibly like he was slowly getting submerged underwater, but all of those things were familiar as ever, even if they hadn’t happened to him as much or as often as they used to. Combined with how crystal clear everything feels, despite the heaviness of his limbs, Yuuri had the sinking feeling that he… really wasn’t going to be okay, when the skating was over and done with.

It’s a single day. It’s only a single day, but Yuuri had felt this way before and he knew he needed to warn Minako-sensei before it actually happened. But he just didn’t know _how._

They’re already set up at the rink side, well after the warming up and practice are done and Yuuri had found out when he would be skating, before he manages to convince himself to say anything at all. Minako-sensei tries to pat him on the back, then hold him by the shoulders to say that he’s going to be fine, but he somehow found it in himself to grit his teeth and cut her off.

“I’ll be able to finish skating,” he said, voice tight, and she slowed down in her speech, the surety of his tone actually registering, “But- I may not be okay. After.”

“Yuuri-” she started, looking confused, but he shook his head, and lifted his hands to cover hers where they still rested on his shoulders.

“I may not be okay, after. I- I had to be okay. During.” Yuuri said, haltingly. “I couldn’t freeze up. I kept freezing up in the beginning and- I almost got killed. It kept happening again and again and I-” he broke off, and stared up at her a little helplessly.

Minako stared back at him, her eyes huge in her head.

“Yuuri-kun-”

“ _So-”_ he broke in hurriedly, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to start again if he stopped, “I should be okay while I’m skating. I may not be comfortable talking to anyone when I’m done. But I think I should be okay at least till you get me back out and away from-”

“Do you want me to reserve a hotel room for us?” she asked him directly, when he found that he couldn’t say any more. Her voice was thankfully muted enough to avoid even being heard by the other skaters and coaches that were milling about by the rink side.

The offer nearly makes Yuuri wilt with relief, because he hadn’t actually wanted to ask for anything of the sort. Even if the thought of needing to get back on a train and travel, in public, surrounded by too many people and enclosed in a metal cage that was moving too fast for him to get off, had only been adding to the leaden ball of discomfort that had been lodged in his stomach. Minako-sensei didn’t even look angry, or disgusted, she just squeezed his shoulders and gave him a toothy grin.

“Just go and skate your heart out, kid, leave the rest to me.” she said, and Yuuri nodded.

By the time he actually had to step out past the boards, Yuuri’s mind felt as placid and clear as any other time he’d stepped past a set of wrought iron doors, surrounded by other clearers and ready to walk to his death.

*

Yuuri does better than he thought he did, at least as far as staying on his feet after his programs are done. He somehow manages to make second place on the podium – and he only manages _that_ because the favorite for second had a bad fall towards the end of his free skate. To the point that he rockets down to fifth and Yuuri gets pushed up from third.

Yuuri might have felt nauseated by the fact that he medaled because of _luck_ and not skill, but he’d been too busy trying not to break down in public after the ceremony was over.

When he actually comes back to himself, hours later, he finds himself in an unfamiliar room, shivering under a blanket, tucked between the nightstand and one of the beds in as small a ball as he can make of himself.

Minako-sensei was on the other side of the room from him, under a duvet of her own, snoring in her sleep.

_Oh,_ he thought weakly, his lids shuttering.

His eyes felt gummy, and his cheeks felt tacky. When he pressed his face to his knees, hands fumbling at his sides, he found that Minako had surrounded him in pillows and put a bottle of water down for him in easy reach. The clawing sensation that starts in his chest and pushes its way up to his throat is horrible in that, he should be done. He should be done and-

He didn’t remember what it felt like, to have someone trying to take care of him when he couldn’t take care of himself. Not after he’d broken down after defeating a boss. He’d been alone for so long and- Even after Kirito had fallen in with him, and Asuna-san had tried to take care of him after she and Kirito-nii had gotten together, Yuuri had usually been too fast with his teleport crystals for either of them to get till him. And he’d had enough safe houses and inns that he frequented across the lower floors that they never would have been able to guess where he’d disappeared too accurately. Kirito-nii had managed to figure it out a bunch of times _anyway,_ somehow, but it happened rarely enough that Yuuri was usually left to tend to himself.

Minako-sensei feels like unconditional love, whether he wants it or not. Whether he’s ready for it or not. And that _hurts._

“Yuuri?” she slurred, voice heavy with sleep, but somehow having been able to tell that something was different. Even while dead to the world.

“I’m okay,” he whispered, and heard the rustling sounds of cloth being rearranged on the other side of the room.

He didn’t bother actually looking up, but he wasn’t surprised when she crawled closer, tugging her duvet with her.

“Can I hug you?” she asked him softly.

He nodded, and found himself wrapped up in her arms all over again.

“Please don’t tell kaa-chan,” Yuuri mumbled into her shoulder, once he’d managed to calm himself down again. “Because I don’t want to make her feel sad.”

“Oh, you silly boy. This wouldn’t make her feel sad, she’d just want to be there for you.” Minako muttered back at him, ruffling his hair.

“I don’t deserve it,” he replied, voice scratchy in his throat, eyes burning enough that he was afraid he’d start tearing up all over again. “I didn’t- Minako-sensei, I shouldn’t have gotten that silver med-”

“If you think someone else deserved it more than you, get gold in the sectionals and prove that it wasn’t a fluke.” She said, firm, and Yuuri clung to her and _sobbed._ The sounds erupting from his chest were ugly enough that he felt embarrassed to be making them, but Minako hushed him softly when he tried to say anything, and just let him cry.

“I’ll try,” he croaked later, once he’d cried all he could bear. “I’ll try, Minako-sensei.”

“That’s the spirit.” Minako said, and Yuuri could feel her smiling into his hair.

*

He doesn’t get gold, finally, when they travel to Fukuoka for the Western Junior Sectionals. But he _does_ get silver, this time managing to stay above the bronze medalist by a five point lead. It’s not as good as it could have been, but it’s a whole lot better than how he did at the Chi-Shikoku-Kyushu Regionals.

The JSF apparently decided that it was enough proof of him making a comeback, as the letter he received from them about successfully having qualified for the Junior Grand Prix came with a personal note of congratulations for his return to skating.4

Yuuri’s parents were so proud of him that they discussed having the letter framed in the dining hall. He only managed to make them stop with help from Mari-nee – and not without bribing her with the offer to take over her chores for a month. Of course, Minako and Nishigori-san tried to do the same when his parents gave up – Minako wanting it in her dance studio, and Nishigori-san chiming in that it made more sense to have it at an actual _ice skating rink_. The only reason they didn’t actually have their way was because Yuuri made use of what little he had left of his stealth skill to steal it out of his parents’ room one night, making sure that it was never found again.

*

He holds on all the way through to the finals, somehow, but he only manages to get till fifth place. When he gets back home, half convinced that he’ll have find some way around both Minako and Nishigori-san to actually level grind the way he wants to, the way he _needs_ to, to get anywhere near good enough to someday skate on the same ice as Victor, he’s met with his parents and sister beaming at him in the waiting area of the airport.

It’s unexpected enough by itself that he stops short, apprehensively wondering who was managing the inn, and nearly gets bowled over by a tiny, curly haired form that throws itself at his shins. When he looks down, it’s to find the cutest little puppy he’s ever seen, and his heart turns to mush in his chest.

“Oh wow,” Minako-sensei said from behind him. “Hiroko-chan, if you’re going to get him a puppy, I should at least rate an entire bottle of plum wine to myself.”

Yuuri distantly hears his mom laugh and say something about Minako having enough of a tab at the inn that she didn’t rate anything of the sort, but he’s too busy dropping to his knees and hugging the excited little puppy to himself. It’s tiny enough – _he’s_ tiny enough that he’s overflowing with affection for everyone and everything, and Yuuri knows the little barks and the way a small tongue is determinedly trying to cover his entire face in licks is just a side-effect of that affection, but he can’t help the delighted giggles that are overflowing from him.

“What are you going to name him?” Mari-nee asked him, coming forward to crouch down beside them both.

“Vicchan,” Yuuri said, not even needing to stop and think it over. Because Vicchan might be tiny, and more chocolate colored than the gray-champagne shade he _knows_ Victor’s Makkachin is, but there was no other visible difference he could see between the two dogs, and how could he even dream of naming the puppy anything else?

Mari chokes, and doubles over, close to cackling.

“Of course. Of _course.”_ She said, and Yuuri was too happy to really take offence.

He had to shove her over when she started leering at him though. Because he just had to.

*

He might have only made fifth place at the Junior GPF and ended his skating season that year, but he made up for his poor showing the next season round, and won gold. Pushing past the closest competition with an easy fifteen point lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNINGS:** Panic attacks, Anxiety severe enough that Yuuri blacks out and goes catatonic, the kind of depression and dissociation that goes hand in hand with SAO and other survival horror genres. Yuuri's mindset gets altered enough by SAO that he views the real world in gaming terminology because it's easier that way - I can view this as denial or some degree of dissociation again. Yuuri also has moments of disconnect where he forgets that he's actually in the real world in this chapter - including situations in which he forgets to eat for multiple meals and the description of which _can be read as an eating disorder_ \- I'm not sure if this degree of dissociation is traumatic or not, but I think it's better to note it here. Survivor's guilt on part of Yuuri's family and friends in Hasetsu - in that they saw him go into it and didn't stop him.
> 
> ***
> 
> **AN:** Hoo Boy, this one's a weird one, isn't it. The strange things that watching Ordinal Scale while being on a YOI kick will do to your brain. Hope you enjoyed it anyway! And if any of you were at Anime Boston this weekend - wasn't it a blast? If you _were_ there, you might just have seen me wandering about in a fem!Xanxus cosplay - from KHR. *grins wryly*
> 
> **Kudos and comments are very welcome!** I've slowed down in my responses, but you will get them. I'd love to chat about the sheer weirdness of crossing these two series. They barely have anything in common, eh.  
>  ***
> 
> 1: Disclaimer here, guys. Yuuri doesn’t bring it up in-fic, but he trained with wooden and rubber weighted training knives after he developed the interest to retain some of what he learnt in SAO. His experiments with live blades made Mari hunt down classmates, old friends and acquaintances from her Yankee days to help connect him to people who could give him useful pointers. His parents weren’t disapproving as much as they were worried about the larger ramifications of that kind of muscle training, since it happened mostly against his will. And he’s their baby, they’re allowed to have unquantifiable and relatively unreasonable worries. All parents have them. Yuuri doesn’t tell anyone he’s playing around with live kitchen blades, though the few people who do find out are caught between glee and sheer what-is-wrong-with-you-Katsuki hysteria. (Before you ask – Mari was a yankee in Tokyo. Where she went for high school in her rebellious teenage years, decided she didn’t like it, and returned to Hasetsu. Or, at least, that’s what happened in this fic.)
> 
> 2: Pained and amused glances are being shot around because Yuuri’s known for having smiles even milder than Kirito’s and a timid nature that hid a sense of humor twice as nasty as his. At least among Kirito’s little group. Yuuri keeps saying he’s not that close to the rest of Kirito’s little ~~harem~~ circle, guys, but the crew would pile on top of him with hugs and tears, demanding to know why Kirito gets the special treatment. And poor Yuuri would go crimson and stutter softly about how he didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. And they’d forgive him all at once on the spot.
> 
> 3: This might look or seem a bit weird, but for some reason, I’ve always headcanoned that Takeshi married into the Nishigori family, and into the family business of maintaining the Ice Castle, which had been owned by the Nishigori family for roughly two generations. I apologize in advance if this makes some of you uncomfortable. It doesn’t really make much of difference in the larger scheme of things, anyway…
> 
> 4: Yuuri had been taken note of as a novice – and yes, he had been entered into the novice level competitions in this ‘verse. While he didn’t actually get placed in international events, there had been enough appreciation for his skill that people had been looking forward to his development, and how he would do once he entered the junior league. Of course, then SAO happened, and he disappeared off the map.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which Yuuri actually reaches the Senior Division. Among other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Head to the bottom for trigger warnings, as usual.** Also for author's notes, as well as additional footnotes on what's happening outside of Yuuri's headspace. Since our dear dime-a-dozen Japanese figure skater can be more inscrutable and dense than he'd like to think to people on the outside.
> 
>  **EDIT:** Okay, since I'm not actually familiar with the ins and outs of multichapter fics. Is anyone willing to share how to stop the first chapter notes from carrying forward through the rest of the fic? If you do, just drop me an explanation in a comment, please. Thank you. *winces*
> 
>  **EDIT 2:** Hah! Figured it out. If anyone sends across the explanation before I posted my second edit note, thanks all the same! *sheepish grin*

After the actual skating is over and done with, and when he’s at the banquet of his second and last Junior Grand Prix, he’s standing out of the rush in the center of the banquet hall with Minako-sensei when his future coach approaches him for the first time. The long hair flying wildly around him left him looking vaguely leonine, and that combined with his loud voice and dramatic personality made Yuuri jerk back in surprise into Minako-sensei’s chest, nearly mistaking him for some of the more flamboyant larpers he’d run into in Aincrad. It took a few seconds and the stranger and Minako both looking increasingly worried before Yuuri managed to drag himself out of a world he thought he’d gotten used to setting to the side when required.

“ _Yuuri_ \- I swear, Celestino, if you managed to make my student hurt himself-”

“But that wasn’t my intention at all, signora Okukawa! _Perdonami, ragazzo_ 1 _,_ are you okay?”

Yuuri blinks once, twice, still dazed, but he manages to shake himself out of his funk, and feels less like reaching down for one of his knives, sheathed covertly in boots _that aren’t there anymore-_ another shuttering of his lids, and he proceeds to dig the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. Counts down a second, two, five, _breathes,_ and finally straightens, letting his arms drop back down.

Minako and the man, Celestino, had calmed down in the interim, just watching him with identical, worried looks on their faces. It makes him choke a bit, inspiring _more_ worry, and Yuuri can’t take it. He dissolves into soft laughter, the ghost of Aincrad retreating to the back of his head, where it belongs.

It’s the matter of minutes for Minako to confess that she had been in correspondence with Celestino, who’d apparently been watching him ever since the qualifiers for his first Junior GPF. The confession is one that is hard to digest, for Yuuri. Since it seemed unbelievable to think that any well-known coach would be interested enough in his skill to _make the offer themselves._ From the sharp glance Minako-sensei shoots him, even as she continues to talk with Celestino in an undertone, fingers steady on the flute of champagne she’s been nursing ever since they’d arrived at the banquet, she can tell _exactly_ what’s going through his head. Yuuri ducks his head, abashed, and wonders distantly when he’d gotten good enough to attract the attention of the big leagues in RL too.

He’d been aiming at them for a while, obviously. There’s no way he could skate on the same ice as Victor without actually getting good enough to deserve to be there. But, somehow, he’d never really thought through the greater implications of that aim.

It’s like SAO all over again. He’d left the Town of Beginnings, firm in his decision to get good at the game, to aim for _brilliance,_ because there was no other way he to stay alive _and_ beat the game in one piece, but he’d never really thought further than level grinding. By the time he’d reached the upper floors and levelled up to the point that the clearers were happy to have him among them, no matter how young he looked, Yuuri had reached the kind of levels very few people in the game had ever dreamt of reaching.

That last fight against the Skull Reaper on Floor 75 had pushed him the last of the way over into 95, after all. It had probably done the same for Asuna-san, too, and he’d been stuck at 94 along with her for a _long_ time before that, with both of them lamenting over just how much of a grinding junkie Kirito-nii had to have been to have hit 96 as fast as he did.

Doing the work was _easy_ for Yuuri. Or, well. Not easy. But it was easier to focus on what had to be done, on the sheer physicality of it, without letting the greater implications of his actions cloud his mind. Yuuri wasn’t always successful at pushing aside the kind of thoughts that made him spiral out of control, but when he _did_ manage to get himself in gear the way he wanted to, there was very little that could ruin his focus. And he’d both the time and the space to practice as hard as he wanted to, as hard as he _needed_ to, after he’d gotten out of SAO.

While he’d done very well at skating when he’d been younger, his family had still just treated his interest as a particularly obsessive hobby. Even after he’d started collecting posters of Victor – that had been explained away as a celebrity crush. But after he’d gotten out of Aincrad and woken up in the hospital, and when the only question he’d asked the physical therapist was whether or not he’d be able to skate competitively in the future after how badly his body had wasted away… His parents still hadn’t understood, not really, and neither had Mari, but they’d supported him in his dream to the fullest. And their onsen business was actually successful enough to keep Yuuri afloat in his early years as a skater before those gold medals from the Nationals started to rope in the kind of sponsors he needed to keep going without relying fully on his parents.

 “So, what do you say, Yuuri-kun? Does Celestino-san’s offer sound like something you’d like to take up?”

Yuuri glanced up with a start, having been lost in his thoughts. Taking in the patient expression on Minako’s face, and the expectant one on Celestino’s, Yuuri pursed his lips, turning the idea over in his head once more. He was tempted to ask for a little more time to think it over, but honestly, agreeing to Celestino’s offer seemed to be the best thing he could do to level up his skating-

The thought makes him wince, just a bit, because he _wasn’t_ a gamer, no matter what Aincrad had managed to do to his brain worked. Kirito-nii had always been so _amused_ whenever Yuuri had slipped and used gaming terminology around him, especially when he’d vehemently denied being a gamer of any kind whenever anyone asked him about it. At least Asuna-san had been a bit more sympathetic about his situation, after Kirito had introduced them.

“Yes,” he said out loud, turning to meet gazes with Celestino-san, Celestino- _coach,_ more seriously. “Thank you for the offer, Celestino-san, I’d love to have the opportunity to work with you.”

Celestino looked momentarily surprised by the prompt response, Yuuri could only assume Minako-sensei had warned him about Yuuri possibly asking for more time, before he burst into delighted laughter, attracting the attention of more than a few skaters, coaches and others in their vicinity.

Yuuri found himself swaying under the weight of the enthusiastic pair of hands that had been clapped to his shoulders.

“ _Che bello_ 1 _!_ It will be my pleasure to work with you, too, Katsuki!”

“Yuuri, please,” Yuuri bleated out, wondering dizzily for a split second if he hadn’t tried to take on a mob boss or quest he wasn’t correctly equipped for before Minako-sensei brushed past Celestino to wrap her arms around his shoulders in a hug.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered into his ear, and Yuuri felt himself settle immediately, lifting his arms up to hug her back.

It looked like some things held good for RL as much as they did for Aincrad. Even if he didn’t have the right items to solo a floor or grind on his own, not at the kind of levels he was aiming at, having someone like Minako-sensei in his party meant he didn’t _need_ anything else.

*

A couple years into his shift to Detroit along with Vicchan (unwilling to leave him behind, no matter how much his fixation reminded him of Silica and Pina), his life completely different from what he’d been envisioning back when he’d still been struggling to get back on the ice, and Yuuri found that even the varied set of experiences he’d had over time hadn’t prepared him for Phichit. Friends first and initially reluctant housemates next, and Yuuri woke up one day to find that he’d managed to fall into the kind of friendship that would have had _both_ his elder siblings ruffling his hair with a muttered ‘you did good, kid.’

He’d gotten used to living on his own, though, and not having anyone watch over his shoulder in his own home, so some unfortunate habits had gotten ingrained by the time Phichit moved into his apartment, citing reasons like ‘the rink is closer from here’ and ‘we will be the bestest of best friends! Two Asians against the crazy cheese and bacon filled world! You’ll see, Yuuri!’

So it wasn’t really surprising that he damn near gave poor Phichit a heart attack the first time he walked in on Yuuri lazily juggling his kitchen knives while he waited for his ramen to get through its three minute wait. 

Aincrad reflexes boosted by the muscle memory his Unique Skill had trained meant that no one got hurt, Yuuri’s kitchen linoleum and countertops included, but he had to field hysterical questions about running away with the circus in his youth or being a secretly trained government spy, which, really Phichit. Yuuri managed to get him to sit down and breathe before he actually started hyperventilating, but not before Phichit managed to push in a feverish question about being the heir to a Yakuza family too.

On calming down, and after Yuuri got him to drink a glass of water and rehydrate, Phichit had at first been ecstatic, and then inconsolable when Yuuri shot down all requests and blubbery pleadings to let him record a shot for Instagram and/or Twitter.

It doesn’t take him more than a week to figure it out, though. Yuuri’s reluctantly impressed when the younger teen shuffles into his room, having hovered by the door awkwardly until Yuuri had invited him in.

“I don’t mind,” he insisted, smiling softly when Phichit sat cuddling Vicchan closer on his bed. Vicchan, for his part, whined and tried to reach up and lick Phichit’s chin. On most days, that would have been enough to cheer him up, but not today. “It happened a long time ago, Phichit, and there’s nothing wrong in asking.”

“But- don’t they say it’s rude? To ask?” Phichit asked, looking so terribly worried and guilty that Yuuri had to sigh, reaching out to pull him into a hug. Because, even if Phichit was usually the one cheering him up and bringing light and laughter to his previously silent apartment, Yuuri had learnt to return the affection when Phichit needed it. And he clearly did, this time.

“You must have been- so _small-”_ Phichit whispered, sounding distressed, hugging poor Vicchan tight enough that it _had_ to be uncomfortable, but Vicchan endured it with no complaints, and Yuuri didn’t say anything either, letting him cuddle closer. It was the truth, after all. Yuuri _had_ been small. One of the youngest. If he ever met any of the SAO clearers again, he _knew_ their first reaction to him would be ‘it’s been so long that the tiniest clearer grew up’.

“I’m glad you got out. I’m _glad,_ Yuuri, I’m glad to have met you, you’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and if that game had- had- t-taken you ou-”

“But it didn’t,” Yuuri cut in, voice soft. “It didn’t, Phichit-kun. I’m still here. And I’m fine. And I’m skating, and I’m _happy._ There’s nothing I regret, and nothing more I could want.”

“Okay. Okay.” Phichit said, shivering. And he stayed right there, curled up with his head tucked underneath Yuuri’s chin, just breathing for the next hour, before he bounced back, all his distress tucked away for another day.

“Are you _sure_ I can’t record you juggling with your knives? You were going so fast, too!”

“ _No_ Phichit-kun!”

“Such a spoilsport. Here, take a roomie selfie with me instead! Vicchan too! Cheese!”

Yuuri leant in obligingly, and politely said nothing about how pinched the corners of Phichit’s eyes looked in the shot2.

*

He takes his time training at Detroit, insistent on being able to land at least two quads in competition by the time he’s rated high enough to be seeded into the Senior Grand Prix, to the point that _Phichit_ starts muttering ominously about level grinding. Yuuri’s more than a little horrified, and starts watching what he says more carefully around Phichit, because it seemed liked familiarity made Yuuri’s tongue loose. And here he’d thought he’d _stopped_ speaking in those terms.

He hasn’t thought of RL training in terms of AGI and STR boosting since he’d still been struggling through physical therapy right after Kirito beat Kayaba, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.

Celestino insists that he doesn’t need to exhaust himself the way he is, since a quad toe loop along with the guarantee of a high PCS meant he was already good enough to be a worthy competitor at the GPF. Yuuri hears this, and his brain unfortunately translates it as high leveled, but not quite at the levels needed to breeze through an upper floor.

And for all that he is usually successful at stopping the lessons he’d learnt in Aincrad from influencing his daily life, had been largely successful at keeping that encroachment to a minimum, the part of him that had actually developed some little bit of pride in being good enough to be a clearer _cringed_ at being satisfied with anything less. And so, he trained, and he kept training, and when he realized the choreography the in-house choreographer suggested wouldn’t net him the kind of PCS he _knew_ he was physically capable of… He begged Celestino to allow him to collaborate with Minako-sensei again. _If_ she was willing to take him up.

Celestino had been taken aback, and a little hesitant, but Yuuri’s argument had won him over soon enough. They both knew _exactly_ how good a dancer Yuuri was, after all. And Minako might very well have convinced him to take up ballet as a career if Yuuri hadn’t been reeled in first by the ice, then by Yuuko and finally by Victor Nikiforov and his gold medal winning, record breaking performance at the junior GPF, right before Yuuri had gotten locked into SAO3.

Minako had been very willing, thankfully, and Yuuri could feel his ability shoot up further as soon as he started practicing the tentative short program that Minako had helped him craft. He’d been planning on completely relying on her expertise, but she’d shot that down harder than he’s seen Asuna-san shoot down reckless suggestions at the strategy table. With the explanation that, since he was planning to level up his game for the Seniors, it only made sense to add some more of himself to his routines.

She’d looked completely innocent while suggesting it too. Yuuri had eyed her suspiciously all the way through, because not only had he grown up training under her and her crazy sadistic training routines, but he’d also partied with Kirito more than once towards the end of his time in Aincrad. Nothing about that butter-wouldn’t-melt expression inspired trust in him.

…the first time he perfectly landed the quad salchow at an exhibition skate Celestino signed him up for, the closest he could come to landing it in competition before the competitive season actually started, Phichit nearly slammed him through the boards when he stepped off the ice, cheering loud enough to wake the dead.

*

He’s not sure how he managed to do it, but somehow, by the end of his first ever run at the Senior GPF, Yuuri finds himself standing beside Victor Nikiforov on the podium, holding up a silver medal and smiling at all the flashing cameras, expression still tinged with disbelief.

He’d only managed to beat Christophe Giacometti by the fraction of a point to get there, though, and something in him is very dissatisfied by that, especially now that he’s managed to prove that he deserves to be skating on the same ice as Victor. He’s good, good enough to reach the podium from the look of it, but he’s not _good enough._ Not good enough to have bagged his silver by a landslide, and certainly not good enough to even be nipping at Victor’s heels. Now that he’s managed to get where he has, he wants to be _better._ He wants to be so good that Victor is forced to look back and see who’s managed to get so close.

It’s the fraction of a difference between a high levelled player who’s satisfied with simply levelling up and staying alive and the high leveled player who decides to be a _clearer._ And Yuuri knew exactly which one of those he wanted to be. He’d decided that years ago. Being _good_ simply isn’t good enough for him. Being good is something any other dime-a-dozen Japanese skater who gets to the international stage can be. Yuuri had always been aiming for the very top, though, hadn’t he? Even if he’d never really thought it through.

Victor still towers over Yuuri, over both him and Chris, his smile as brilliant as ever and so far above them it hurts to consider the distance, but now that he’s closer to it, Yuuri can see just how superficial that smile is. He’s seen smiles like that before, and he’s a little terrified to see one of them on Victor’s face. It’s just that, Yuuri can’t understand why it’s on _Victor’s_ face. He’d usually seen those deadened eyes on the faces of players who’d… resigned themselves to Aincrad. To never getting out, to being stuck living in a video game. There had been many of those players, and Yuuri had seen many who’d gotten used to that life, too, and enjoy it, but the look in Victor’s eyes was the resignation of someone who couldn’t see a way out. And wasn’t happy with where they were.

Yuuri’s mind whispers _not good enough,_ even as one of the cameramen urges him and Chris to get closer to Victor for a sporting shot of all three medalists of the Grand Prix Final. He’s got Victor’s arm around his shoulders, and they’re _both_ laughing at Chris, who’s not only nudged himself scandalously close to Victor on the other side, but is also blowing a dramatic air kiss to the cameras, and Yuuri still can’t help thinking this isn’t good enough. Not when his idol looks tired enough that Yuuri might not even get the chance to skate on the same ice as him for another season, a _better_ season, and not with a silver medal he’d won by chance hanging around his neck.

That emotion is probably what makes him agree to the challenge of a drinking competition that Chris fires at him later, at the banquet. He’s familiar enough with Chris, if not truly friends with him, has skated against him at least a few times before in both the junior GPF and in the qualifying rounds for the senior before Yuuri actually managed to reach the final this time. He’d gotten seeded in before, but Sochi was still his first final. The first time Yuuri had met Chris, in spite of the alarming flirtatiousness and the later sensuality, he’d reminded Yuuri enough of Klein-san’s unexpectedly sharp-eyed and casually supportive nature that it had hurt. It had also left him with some horrifying mental images of a Klein-san that successfully flirted with anything that walked around on two legs and could consent to a romp in the sheets.

The familiarity is what truly lets him let go, even with Celestino tutting beside him, asking him what Minako would do.

One of the last relatively lucid memories Yuuri has left of that night is laughing in Celestino’s face. Because not only would Minako take Chris up on the challenge, she would probably spend the night flirting outrageously with him to boot.

He wakes up utterly disoriented the next morning to his coach banging on the door to his room, most of the previous night a blank. Asking Celestino about it later, when they were on the flight back to Detroit, only prompted a heartfelt groan, with his coach burrowing under a blanket and an eye mask, threatening to put in ear plugs if Yuuri asked him anything else about it.

The reaction leaves Yuuri feeling more than a little uneasy, but there is literally nothing else he can do about it. And he’s honestly too scared to try and contact Chris about it. Not when he’d have to do it over SNS, since he doesn’t actually have Chris’ phone number.

He ultimately decides that it couldn’t have been too bad, not if nothing made the papers. And if it _was_ that bad, well… he was probably better off not knowing anything about it. Right?

*

That feeling of ‘not good enough’ persists all the way through to his trip back to Japan later in the month with Celestino, and bogs him down enough that he doesn’t even make the podium in the Japanese Nationals. He’s thankfully still fifth in the ranking, so he isn’t all that far down, but fifth in the nationals after the grand prix only increases that sinking feeling in his gut that tells him his silver at the grand prix was a fluke.

The feeling is sickening enough that Yuuri has an epiphany overnight, after speaking to his parents and Mari before he has to board a plane back to Detroit again. And it’s what makes him decide, more than anything else, that he needs a break, because falling further over time that season wouldn’t do any good, least of all when it came to his mental state.

Later, after they get back to daily practice at the rink, Celestino is horrified enough to hear his decision that he shoves Yuuri back at Phichit with orders to hold him down while he rushes back to where he’d left his phone. And Yuuri is left struggling against his friend, who somehow seems to have morphed into an octopus when he wasn’t looking, hearing Celestino speaking rapidly with someone on his phone.

When the phone is pressed to his ear, he realizes that it’s Minako-sensei, and wonders when the hell his coach and his dance mentor had gotten close enough to call each other about him on a whim. 

 He holds his breath, preparing to be yelled at, and the breath lodges at the bottom of his throat when all Minako asks him is: “Are you sure?”

Yuuri tries desperately not to choke on his own breath when he says “Yes, yes I am. I need to _train,_ Minako-sensei. I’m not nearly good enough.”

He doesn’t say he needs to level up. He’s almost too terrified to say it, not with Phichit still having one forearm looped around the front of his neck, and not with Minako on phone. Both of them are among the most sharply observant people Yuuri has ever met in his life, along with both Kirito-nii and Mari-nee, and he doesn’t need to worry them at this stage. Not when him needing a break to come to terms with himself, and to train aspects of his skating that need to get better before he can actually offer a worthwhile challenge to Victor, has absolutely nothing to do with a relapse. And that’s _exactly_ how Minako would view it.

She’d been the one to take it the hardest, when he’d gotten locked into SAO, from what he’d heard. Mari had confessed that she’d blamed herself first for not keeping him occupied enough in training and then for not giving him more breaks – anything that could have stopped him from thinking he needed to turn to games, of all things, to get a break from the rigors of training to become a professional skater. It’s an unrealistic sense of guilt, Yuuri knows this, and even years after Mari-nee’s confession, he knew that Minako-sensei didn’t actually believe there was anything she could have done to have prevented what had happened. But guilt made no sense. And inexplicable self-blame was something Yuuri understood very, _very_ well.

He didn’t need either her or Phichit thinking that he was training himself to the bone because he was dissatisfied with the way his flesh and bone body leveled up in comparison to the body he’d had when he’d been locked in Aincrad. He’d been accused of that, well before he’d shifted to Detroit, and even after. He didn’t need Phichit to take up Minako-sensei and Takeshi’s tendencies to watch him like a hawk when he started dropping gaming terminology unconsciously while training for too long.

“As long as you’re confident in what you’re doing, Yuuri-kun. You know my doors are always open for you if you decide to take your break back here in Hasetsu. Okay?”

“Okay.” He replied, smiling a little feebly, especially since Phichit was whining right into his ear and Celestino looked utterly exasperated, snatching the phone back from his hands to demand why Minako was _encouraging_ his thoughts to take a break when he was clearly good enough to keep going.

 _But I’m really not,_ he wanted to say. But didn’t. Because he knew neither Phichit, nor Celestino would be able to understand. Phichit might, especially when he qualified for _his_ first run at the Grand Prix. Yuuri could tell it was going to be soon, possibly the next skating season. Phichit was just as invested as Yuuri was at polishing his edge, if for very different reasons from Yuuri. So he would understand. Just… not yet.

So, school. And training. Yuuri could do that. Even if Celestino kept lamenting his lost chances at Worlds and the Four Continents. Yuuri wanted to say there’s no way he would get sent to either of those by the JSF, not when he’d come in _fifth_ at the nationals, but even he knew there was a good chance his fluke of a silver medal would convince them he was worth betting on for other international events.

Well, too bad. Yuuri was the one skating, and it definitely wasn’t good enough to convince _him._

There was no way in hell he would let himself face off against that empty smile on Victor’s face without training himself till he dropped. Or, at least, until he remade himself to the point that he could actually offer his idol a viable challenge.

…it didn’t help that he’d been having recurring dreams of promising Victor that they would challenge each other even if no one else could challenge them. That _that’s_ what being the strongest party meant. The dreams are weird as hell, and are terribly embarrassing even without the overwhelmed, teary-eyed expression he’d seen fit to plant on dream-Victor’s face. The entire talk of parties with his idol thrown into the mix leaves him wanting to hide his head under a pillow and block out the world, in fear that Kirito-nii would somehow find out and tease him to death, because honestly, the only people he’d heard discussing parties and partnerships with _that_ kind of slant were Kirito and Asuna, when they thought no one else was paying attention to them. And, nope. _Nope._ 4

He didn’t have the right to think of Victor in those terms. Not at all. No matter _what_ his dream-self seemed to think.

*

He didn’t have the right to think of Victor with any kind of familiarity, no matter _what_ his dreams since the GPF seemed to be trying to tell him, but it’s terribly hard to remember that standing by the doorway opening out into one of the onsen’s more private pools, staring at the _very_ pretty picture the older man makes, half submerged in water and so very naked beneath it.

Yuuri is used to nudity, if not very comfortable with it personally. He’s grown up in an onsen, with the unvoiced implication that he will help Mari manage it if she ever runs into any trouble managing on her own later. He’s helped out at the onsen and taken advantage of it at every given opportunity during his years training from home. That doesn’t mean he’s mentally prepared to confront the reality of seeing _Victor Nikiforov_ standing up in what feels like slow motion, water sluicing off his lean, sculpted form in little waves, and steam kissing the edges of his silhouette in a way that looks like it should belong to a dream of a _very_ different kind from the ones Yuuri’s been having. Or an _eroge_ cutscene, and Yuuri sure as hell hadn’t gotten involved with any of those. No matter what he’d heard his classmates whisper to each other in his final years of high school.  

The claim of having arrived at Hasetsu to become his coach make absolutely no sense to him. Not when Yuuri hasn’t made any official statements about parting ways with Celestino. Oh, it’s easy to assume that he has, especially since he’s shifted back to Hasetsu after his graduation, but he can’t for the life of him figure out why Victor’s taken that assumption and run with it. To be his _coach,_ of all things.

Yuuri had been hearing rumors about Victor considering at best a break, at worst retirement, ever since the Grand Prix ended. The exhaustion he’d seen on the older man’s face at the GPF indicated that there was a good chance that those rumors had some measure of truth in them. But he certainly hadn’t been prepared to have those rumors confirmed by _Victor,_ in _Yuuri’s home._

He hurriedly sticks his hands out to catch the edges of the top of Victor’s _jinbei_ and tug them back in place when they slip out of his suddenly nerveless hands.

“But- but you _invited_ me here!” he said, in response to Yuuri’s denial of needing a new coach when his old one is still waiting for him to come back.

Yuuri smiles awkwardly at one of the older guests carefully edging around both him and Victor, and wonders if he shouldn’t have broached the topic only _after_ they’d left the changing area. 

“Yuuri,” Victor started, looking pained, before letting his voice fade away. And Yuuri was horrified and confused in equal measure when the older man’s expression slowly but surely began to close itself off. It made him let go of the cloth trapped in his fingers to catch Victor by the shoulders because, even if he wasn’t anywhere near good enough to be standing this close to Victor, not _yet,_ it didn’t mean he was willing to let him get lost in his head over something Yuuri couldn’t even begin to understand.

Yuuri was an old hand at getting lost in his head and jumping to the worst conclusions. His years in SAO hadn’t miraculously stopped his tendency to lose himself inside his head, but they _had_ taught him to compartmentalize it, at the least. If only when someone else was getting triggered by _his_ reactions.

“Victor. I’m not saying I don’t want you here, even if I can’t really understand _why_ you want to be here. And as for inviting you, when could I have done that? I don’t even remember speaking to you after the joint interviews we did with Chris.”

Victor had started to loosen up after the first part of Yuuri’s words, but something about the second made him go taut beneath Yuuri’s fingers again. The look in his eyes was a cross between lost and disbelieving, and Yuuri wasn’t ready to let himself be the cause for Victor giving in to the resignation Yuuri had seen on his face before. He _wasn’t._

So he let his hands slide down, caught Victor by the wrist and proceeded to drag him out of the bathing area, ignoring the raised brows Mari directs his way when she caught sight of him tugging Victor up to the private section of the inn. He keeps going and doesn’t stop until he’s shouldering his way into his own room. There’s a sharp intake of breath from Victor when he catches sight of all the posters still covering Yuuri’s walls, but this is too important for Yuuri to let himself hesitate at this point.

So he resolutely acts as though he can’t see the way Victor’s pale blue eyes are darting from one poster to the next, the overwhelmed expression on his face familiar for all the wrong reasons, and tugs him the rest of the way through. He can feel his cheeks _burn_ when he tugs the door shut, turning around to meet the other man’s gaze head on.

“Sit. Explain. From the beginning this time, please, because I _don’t understand._ I don’t understand and I really think I need to.” He says plaintively, his hands fisting by his hips.

Victor looks like he’s been blindsided, but Yuuri’s relieved when all he does is slowly take a seat. On Yuuri’s bed, of all things. At least he _has_ taken a seat – though Yuuri’s now almost too scared to consider sleeping in it later that night, after everything was settled. And he already feels like he’s drained away what little reserves of courage he might have while dragging Victor up the stairs.

“You- you invited me, Yuuri. To come here. And coach you.” Victor said haltingly, the lost expression from before making a reappearance. It makes Yuuri inch forward, slowly, feeling like he’s going to be attacked if he isn’t careful.

It’s a wasted effort, though, because Victor glances away, somehow unwilling to meet his eyes5. The role reversal is dizzying in how confused it leaves him. Yuuri can’t even begin to understand why Victor would feel incapable of staring him down straight on. Unless it’s something about Yuuri. Yuuri could definitely see how Victor wouldn’t want to match gazes with him when they weren’t anywhere near in the same league, but something about that thought rang false.

Feeling oddly like he’s approaching a dragon out in Aincrad’s wilds all on his own with no back up, Yuuri gingerly perches on the bed beside him. Victor doesn’t look back at him, so Yuuri grits his teeth, sets hands on his knees and stares him down, waiting for him to continue. When he doesn’t, Yuuri swallows dryly, and forces himself to ask: When?

When had he made such a ludicrous request and how in the _world_ had Victor condescended to agree?

Because, agree he had. There was no other reason why he could be here.

Victor’s lips tug up into a fond, if distant smile.

“At the GPF banquet at Sochi, Yuuri. We danced. You danced with a lot of other people, but when you danced with me, you asked me to be your coach-” he abruptly glances back at Yuuri, looking bemused, and that’s when Yuuri realizes that a high-pitched squeak has escaped his throat.

“I _knew_ something had happened – Celestino wasn’t willing to tell me anything, the next morning. I had _asked.”_ Yuuri hissed out, not sure if he should actually be embarrassed about the situation not. He’s still contemplating whether or not he should be apologizing for his behavior when his hands are suddenly being snatched up.

He can only assume the expression on his face is telling, since Victor looks terribly indignant.

“Don’t you even _think_ of apologizing! It was one of the best nights of my life; I had so much _fun,_ oh, if only you remembered- wait, I have photos-” he cut himself off when Yuuri gently reversed his grip to hold Victor’s hands in turn.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember what happened, it sounds like we had a lovely time. But that still doesn’t tell me why you would drop everything and come here.” He said, trembling just a little. He feels oddly shy, and the entire situation is surreal. He’s holding hands with Victor, sitting in his childhood home, sitting on his childhood bed in his old room and- they’re still surrounded by far too many posters of Victor for comfort. And yet, Victor’s expression is unexpectedly soft, something Yuuri has _never_ seen on his face, and he had been rabidly following anything the internet is willing to give him on the topic of Victor for over a decade, now. Victor had been his _dream,_ one of the few things that had kept him going through the worse days of Aincrad, if only to prove to himself that the outside world and Victor weren’t something his brain had cooked up all on its own.

And now he’s here, in front of him, slowly losing the lost look in his eyes to trade it in for an emotion that makes his eyes _glitter._ It’s so much better than the brilliant, photogenic smiles Yuuri had seen pasted on his face both at Sochi and the years before in pictures.

“You made it sound so nice, though. The request to coach you was something interesting; no one has ever asked me to coach them before! Choreographies, yes, I choreograph for myself and so I can choreograph for others. Especially if they are my rink mates. But no one has even considered stepping up to me directly or asked _anything_ of me so honestly. It made me want to say yes on the spot.”

The burning sensation on Yuuri’s cheeks markedly intensifies, and he shuffles in place, wondering if he should try untangling his fingers from Victor’s, hoping that that was the worst of it. But no, apparently there’s more to Victor’s story.

“But, you mentioned something else with the coaching – I did not understand. And I didn’t want to ask anyone else. But you made it sound so _nice,_ Yuuri-”

…there is a strong sense of foreboding, creeping down Yuuri’s spine.

“-I still don’t understand how hosting a party would do anything for either of us, but I’m game! You must have large rooms for banquets here, we can just commandeer one of them for our purposes-”

He keeps going, but Yuuri’s so mortified that he can barely parse the words Victor is saying. _The dreams._ He’d thought they were dreams, even when they kept replaying again and again with very little change. Even if he knew that’s not how dreams usually work, no matter what he’d been trying to tell himself.

Victor slows down, apparently beginning to notice how stiff Yuuri had gotten beside him. The next thing Yuuri knows, there’s a palm cupping his jawline, fingers delicately tipping his head up, and he chokes, throwing himself back and away. Even if his body traitorously wanted nothing more than to stay in place and enjoy how nice Victor’s cold fingertips had felt against his flushed cheeks.

His back and head slam into the wall to the side of his bed hard enough to make his vision black out and his ears ring. By the time his vision clears, Victor’s actually kneeling further up on the bed beside him, looking caught between amusement and worry.

“Can you hear me now, Yuuri?” he asked, accent lilting softly over the elongated vowel in the center of Yuuri’s name, and Yuuri suddenly finds it too hard to breathe. Victor is far too close for comfort, and Yuuri doesn’t have enough room to pull away.

He can actually see the amusement turn rueful in the tilt of the smile on Victor’s face. He’s more than a little relieved when the older man shifts back, though. Not by much, no, but it’s at least enough for Yuuri to sit up again. Which he does, rubbing at the back of his head and wincing at the way it throbs with pain. He goes still again when he feels more than sees Victor reach out, fingers careful as they check for a wound. Because, yes, _that_ was how hard Yuuri had managed to slam his head into the wall.

He can’t stop the hiss of breath that escapes his lips when the fingers glance right over the tender spot to the back of his scalp, but Victor gentles his touch fast enough that the pain fades quickly.

“Here, come closer, let me see-”

“ _Victor-”_

“ _Yuuri,”_ Victor shot back, voice teasingly petulant, but Yuuri can still hear the chiding note hidden in it. So he sighs, and shifts around so Victor can actually get a clear look.

Victor is perfectly professional about it, taking the better part of a minute to make sure that there weren’t any external side effects to Yuuri’s crash into the wall, but it’s not long before Yuuri can feel the fingers of at least one hand ghosting down to the crook of his neck. The touch is light enough that Yuuri can barely feel it, but that doesn’t stop the reflexive shivers that that judder down his spine. Victor doesn’t even pretend to be apologetic when Yuuri’s hand shoots up to catch those fingers and hold them in place, his breath leaving him in a soundless laugh that Yuuri can feel in the way the hair by his ear floats forward a bit before settling again.

They remain like that for a long moment, Victor seemingly content to wait him out while Yuuri tries to convince himself that this isn’t worth having a breakdown over. But it _makes no sense._ Not even a little. His childhood idol and adult dream is sitting behind him, having followed him to Hasetsu on the promise of a drunken request that he doesn’t even remember outside of his dreams, is sitting close enough that had Yuuri been wearing lighter clothing he probably would have felt the soft weave of Yutopia’s guest _jinbei_ against his skin, has his fingers resting lightly _against the side of Yuuri’s throat,_ and no. No. This doesn’t make even the slightest bit of sense.

“I still don’t understand,” he whispered, hating to disturb the silence enveloping them. He feels Victor’s fingers twitch in his grasp, but he tellingly doesn’t pull them away.

“Do you not want me here?” Victor murmured back, and Yuuri tightened his grasp involuntarily. Because, for all that he doesn’t understand, and doesn’t think he’s reached the level at which he should be allowed to speak to Victor on equal terms like this, for some reason beyond Yuuri’s understanding the older man has decided otherwise.

“I didn’t say that,” Yuuri muttered, pursing his lips, and is rewarded with what sounds unnervingly like a giggle. It makes him blink, and peer cautiously over his shoulder.

Victor has the knuckles of his free hand pressed up against his lips, but even with the hand in the way, Yuuri can still see the soft flush coloring his cheeks, and the tiny little smile pulling irrepressibly at the corners of his lips. His eyes are sparkling in his head, alight with laughter, and the expression is so different from anything Yuuri has ever seen on the otherwise familiar features that he can’t do much but stop and stare, stupefied.

They’re abruptly interrupted by a soft scratching sound coming from the door. By the time Yuuri considered getting up to check, Victor’s large poodle has already head-butted his way in past it, closely followed by Vicchan, who all but gambols forward to keep up with Makkachin’s larger steps.

The moment doesn’t break as much as it… shifts, into something less charged. A little easier. Victor doesn’t move back, he stays in exactly the same place, but he _does_ turn around with a laugh to welcome both the dogs that throw themselves at them. Yuuri’s nearly bowled back into the wall, only steadied by Victor’s arm carefully nudging into the space between the wall and him, but he doesn’t mind it in the least, not when he has a pair of overgrown puppies to play with.

He can feel Victor’s gaze resting on him even as he tugs gently at Makkachin’s ears, chortling when it earns him overly affectionate licks to the chin. Vicchan whines almost piteously in response, even while curled up comfortably in Yuuri’s lap, his plea for attention satisfied when Victor laughs brightly, ducking down to press a kiss to the top of his head.

“He’s so _cute_ , and so tiny – Makkachin, look, he looks just like you!” he cooed, and Yuuri felt himself flush all over again. The red of his cheeks only worsened when Victor looked up at him, expression so calculatedly coy that Yuuri nearly sputters.

…this is flirting, isn’t it. Flirting of a sort. The thought comes to him distantly, even as he’s trying to ignore that Victor had essentially thrown himself into Yuuri’s lap to cuddle Vicchan. Oh, not that he isn’t cuddling Vicchan – the picture the two of them make with the added bonus of Makkachin heavily dropping his head onto Victor’s stomach to pant at them, is cute enough that Yuuri is hard-pressed not to squeal.

 _Photo-op!_ Shrills the Phichit in his head. Yuuri somehow manages to quell the thought, instead reaching out to pet the curls of fur on Vicchan’s head, smiling at the way Vicchan noses his hand back, nipping at his fingertips playfully.

He’s almost proud of how well he’s managing to ignore the fact that Victor’s head is almost in line with Vicchan’s, and that if Yuuri let his fingers stray just the slightest bit, he would be petting Victor’s hair instead.

“We should go down. For dinner.” He said, trying not to look down. It nets him a low laugh, one that coincides with Victor pressing his nose up against Yuuri’s wrist, making his entire arm jolt in surprise.

When Yuuri finally did give in to the urge to look down, he found Victor still smiling up at him. Not nearly coy as before, but he looked like he would be perfectly happy to just continue laying there, cuddled up between their pair of dogs while Yuuri held up their weight.

“We should,” he agreed amicably enough, and made no move to get up.

 _Definitely flirting,_ Yuuri decided, and smiled back helplessly. Because even if he couldn’t understand _why,_ there was absolutely no way he could hold up in the face of Victor’s effusive nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNINGS:** Most of the warnings from the first chapter hold good. Additionally in this one, warning for implied high-functioning depression on the part of Victor. Warning for implied long term depression faced by the individuals stuck in SAO, and Yuuri's ability to recognize the signs of that kind of depression in other people. 
> 
> ***
> 
>  **AN:** Ahaha. Hi? *stares wide-eyed at all the beautiful comments in my inbox* I’m simultaneously overjoyed and terrified by just how many people seem to have liked this idea. On one hand, more people to flail with! Hurray! On the other, I really hope none of what gets posted winds up disappointing you. Here’s hoping that you enjoy this installment as well. I haven’t actually finished replying to everyone, RL really seems to be busting my ass in terms of responding immediately, but I will!
> 
> Even if I’m responding slowly, **please consider sending across what you think!** I’ll reply as soon as I can – **I can’t even begin to describe just how inspiring your thoughts and, yes, your incoherent verbal flailing is. All of it.** And consider dropping kudos if you liked this. Yuuri is such an unreliable narrator, and poor Victor, he’s going to be going through hell, isn’t he. Or maybe that’s Yuuri, since he isn’t exactly saying no to all the flirting. As if Victor needs any more reasons to barrel forward. *laughs evilly* 
> 
> ***
> 
> 1: _Pardonami, ragazzo_ \- Pardon me, young man (inf.). _Ragazzo_ translates as ‘kid’ or “child”, male, but is usually used to refer to young adults, from what I can tell. I’m not actually Italian, nor am I fluent with the language, whatever little I do know is a carryover from the KHR fandom. So, let me know if this is wrong or if there’s something more appropriate to use with the same meaning!  
>  _Che bello_ – Can translate as “that’s nice” or “how lovely/beautiful”. Celestino’s using it as a complimentary phrase here, the meaning in translation a whole lot closer to the former than the latter. Again, feel free to correct me or suggest an alternative if something else would be more appropriate here!
> 
> 2: This is something Lemon_dropz brought up when she read the chapter earlier – we don’t get to see much of Phichit’s reaction from the outside, so it might look like he’s handling the SAO reveal better than he actually is. Yuuri respects Phichit's space and privacy too much to ask after it. Phichit spends a long time reeling, decides he’d rather cherish actually having his best friend, having met him in the first place, and resolves to curse Kayaba’s soul to his dying day. And if he pointedly scrounges through the net to make sure that there’s absolutely no mention of anything connecting Yuuri-the-figure-skater to SAO, well…
> 
> 3: Yes, I do know that SAO was originally released in-series on the 5th of November, and that the game started on the 6th. Sadly, my timeline just gets wonkier and wonkier, particularly since Yuuri would probably hit puberty while in Aincrad if he starts the game when he’s close to fourteen. He sees Victor skate for the first time when he’s twelve, since Victor does his thing in black ~~bondage gear~~ mesh and crystals when he’s 16. The only way to not completely mess up Yuuri’s ability to skate post-SAO is if he’s not fighting his body in every way possible is if he starts the game faster, and the only way that works out in the time line without messing things up even worse is if Kayaba decided to be an asshole and release and begin the game roundabout Christmas. Apologies in advance for messing with the time line!
> 
> 4: …I think some of you know exactly where I’m going with this. *innocent grin* For anyone not as into SAO, I’ll put in a note further in about partying and Kirito and Asuna, and why, exactly, Yuuri is so embarrassed by his dreams later. When the note will be more appropriate. If it isn't immediately understandable or you're too curious to wait it out, well. Feel free to ask!
> 
> 5: Before anyone thinks Victor’s being portrayed as too teary-eyed, consider this: Victor showed up with his heart on his sleeve, prepared to give up his life and career on the slim chance that the man he met at the GPF banquet was everything he’d ever wanted in his life. The triplets never posted the _Stammi Vicino_ video in the ‘verse, if it hadn’t already been obvious. So yes, Victor really is throwing himself out there on a _very_ slim chance. And Yuuri just told him point blank that he has no idea what Victor’s talking about. He doesn’t get notes or a narrative into the workings of Yuuri’s mind, after all. He’s even more clueless than the rest of us. And Yuuri is closed off enough while not drunk to be very intimidating, no matter what he seems to think about himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonder of wonders, there aren’t any new trigger warnings for this chapter! Warnings from the previous chapters still hold good, however.

“Are you really satisfied? With you current coach?” Victor asked him later, once they were done with dinner. Yuuri’s mom had insisted on feeding them the house specialty, saying that Victor being there was worth a cheat meal that night. Even if they _both_ needed to get back to training the next morning.

Her words had drawn raised brows from Victor _and_ Minako-sensei, who had shown up midway through their meal, bearing the news that Victor had been sighted at Saga Airport by a fan who’d proceeded to tweet about it. She hadn’t expected to walk in on Victor curled into Yuuri’s side, playfully warning him that no matter what their plans, Yuuri couldn’t be allowed to eat any more katsudon anytime soon. No matter _how_ good it tasted.

Victor was loose limbed and happy, plied in equal measure with warm food, quality sake and, he claimed, Yuuri’s company. By the time Minako-sensei had shown up, Yuuri had been staring fixedly at the table, fingers trembling around his chopsticks, because of just how close and physically affectionate Victor had gotten over the course of their meal. He could tell that most of the guests at the inn were ignoring the sight of Victor draping himself over Yuuri’s side, explaining it away as a ‘foreigner thing’ – but Yuuri had lived five years abroad, and had competed internationally for every one of those years. And Victor had gone over and beyond the usual limits of even the most casually intimate foreigners Yuuri had met in that time a while back. From the way Minako’s eyes had bugged out at the sight they made, she clearly agreed, but Victor had won her over blindingly fast when he offered to share the sake he still had out, having been offered the entire bottle by Yuuri’s dad earlier on.

“I am,” he replied, resolute.

Minako-sensei snorted loudly from across the table. Yuuri directed an exasperated look her way, which she countered with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

“He isn’t satisfied at all. He likes Celestino quite a bit, and it isn’t like Celestino isn’t a good coach, but we all got the feeling Yuuri wanted something different by the end of the Nationals,” she said, snide, and pointed a finger right between Yuuri’s eyes when he started to protest.

“I haven’t heard you talking about _leveling up_ in years, Yuuri, don’t try to tell me you didn’t want a change.” She rapped out, and Yuuri flinched back.

That wasn’t true. Yuuri always thought of training in terms of leveling up. But, he admitted a little sullenly to himself while Minako-sensei stared him down, he was usually satisfied enough with how he was doing that he hadn’t really lost control of himself and used that terminology out loud in a while.

“But Celestino and I agreed I’m taking a break,” he argued all the same, “I’ll probably go back to him to train for the next season. I think he was planning on traveling to Bangkok with Phichit since there was a good chance I wouldn’t be returning immediately to Detroit-”

“Be honest, Yuuri; you weren’t planning on returning the next season at all. You wanted to stay here and train until you were satisfied with where you were.” She snapped, and Yuuri gritted his teeth, looking away sharply when she narrowed her eyes, demanding that he try and deny the statement.

“Wow,” Victor mumbled, sounding oddly delighted, and Yuuri looked back at him with a start.

“Change is good, I think,” he said, before Yuuri could actually get anything out. “I think I needed some change, too. It’s why what Yuuri suggested in Sochi seemed so attractive to me.”

“ _Yuuri_ suggested that you come here? At Sochi?” Minako asked archly, and Yuuri sighed.

“While drunk. I was drunk. On champagne.” He said, pained, and Victor actually _snickered._

“Lots and lots of champagne,” he agreed, his lips rounding into the cutest heart shaped smile that Yuuri had _ever_ seen. The pretty picture Victor makes nearly hits him like an arrow to the chest, and he can’t help but lift a hand and press it against his sternum, because he has no idea what he did or said to bring Victor here, but he’s starting to think very appreciative thoughts about his drunk self. At least in the moments where he isn’t actively cursing it.

“But in all honesty,” Victor continued, and he forced himself to pay attention, “Even if this isn’t quite what I’d planned on doing… it might be for the better. I needed a break from skating, Yuuri – I’ve _never_ been this low on inspiration. And Minako says you need change, that working with Celestino isn’t really what you need any longer. What do you say to trying me out, just for this season.”

His choice of words is unfortunate enough that Minako _cackles,_ possibly at the sight of just how much Yuuri’s cheeks are burning. There’s a devious little curl to the corner of Victor’s lips, and while he must have been very serious about what he was suggesting, there was no way he didn’t know _exactly_ how those words could have been taken.

Yuuri stutters, starts out with a feeble “I need to think,” before the words peter out. And he _actually_ turns the proposal over in his head.

He doesn’t deserve this, he _knows_ he doesn’t. But it isn’t a case of deserving it or not at this point, after all. Yuuri had wanted to level up his attributes, because the level he’d been at while at Sochi hadn’t been anywhere near enough to dream of competing with Victor on equal terms. And here Victor is, actually offering to train Yuuri up to that level by himself.

When Yuuri had still been stuck in the lower fifties in Aincrad, he’d still been stubborn about soloing his way through each and every battle and floor – doing anything else had felt like cheating back then. He’d been far out of his depth, but he’d somehow managed to get good at what he’d been doing. So it had been both pride and stubbornness that had imposed that solitude on him. And he hadn’t regretted it, no matter how close it had brought him to death – hadn’t even considered going at it any other way until he’d had to be rescued from under a group of armored skeletons that had piled up on him. That had been how he’d met Kirito – Kirito-nii had somehow managed to grind his way up into the higher sixties in spite of them being on the sixtieth floor. And he’d proceeded to tear Yuuri a new one, quietly biting out that _nothing_ was worth dying alone in Aincrad, and if anything was, it certainly wasn’t pride.

Yuuri had low-key sassed him over the lecture incessantly, once he’d gotten to know him better. Since Kirito-nii did the same damn thing all the time. But, in the beginning, Kirito had forced him to grind the next few levels alongside him, if only to make sure Yuuri didn’t manage to off himself. Those fights had taught Yuuri a whole host of tricks that he’d never even considered before, and some of Kirito’s experiments with the system assist that Yuuri tried out only served to make him _faster._ And Yuuri had already been pretty damn fast.

He’s willing to accept that a more experienced mentor might be exactly what he needs. That that mentor is going to be _Victor,_ well…

“Okay,” He said out loud. Minako choked on her next sip, while Victor lit up like a bonfire in fall.

“Okay. I’m willing to try. How are we going to do this?”

“Oh, I might have a _few_ ideas. But first…” Victor’s eyes gleamed like an unsheathed blade when he leant right into Yuuri’s face. “We’ll have to do something about all that flab you put on after starting on your break. I was serious earlier. No more katsudon for you, little piggy.”

Yuuri groaned, finding it in himself to lift a hand up to Victor’s chest and push him away.

“Like I haven’t heard _that_ one before. But, okay. _Okay.”_ He muttered the latter more as an ultimatum to himself.

He still wasn’t sure about what he’d gotten himself into, but at least it would be something _different._ And different could be a good thing. At least it would come with the possibility of training up a different ability map.

*

The call he makes to Celestino later that night is one of the most awkward things he’s ever had to do. What makes it worse is the fact that he has to do it over Skype, with Phichit peeking in from the side with the most hilariously incredulous look Yuuri has ever seen on his face.

Celestino, for his part, doesn’t look offended or irate at all, which were the main things Yuuri had been worried about before he’d made the call. He’d been tempted to put it off for as long as he possibly could, but right before he’d turned in for the night, he’d realized that Victor _had been spotted close to Hasetsu._ Well, relatively. Him being in Japan at all after seemingly taking off on an unexplained break was highly suspect.

Yuuri respected Celestino enough that he didn’t want his coach, his _former_ coach at this point, to hear rumors from anyone else. And even if Yuuri was highly uncomfortable with social media of any kind, he knew just how prolific Victor was on Instagram. Yuuri would inevitably be tagged at _some_ point - and Phichit followed the both of them.

The horror and anxiety of having to deal with the cascade of events he’d sat up imagining had catapulted him out of bed and reaching for his laptop, wild-eyed.

“Are you sure about this, Yuuri?” Celestino asked, unknowingly echoing what Minako had asked him, when he’d first decided to take his break. Or, well. It wasn’t much of a break any longer now, was it.

“I’m… not. Not really. But what Victor said made sense, Celestino-san. I… I think I need some change. I thought I could get it by taking a break, but this way I can get that change and push myself higher at the same time.”

Celestino nodded slowly, and this time, Yuuri could see the faintest trace of regret in the way he shuttered his eyes before a blink of his lids tucked it away. Yuuri didn’t get the chance to actually feel any guilt, though, because Celestino’s expression twisted quite suddenly with suspicion.

“This… this wouldn’t have anything to do with-” he cut himself off, coughing uncomfortably, and Yuuri peered into his screen, confused. At least until he noticed the way Celestino’s shoulders were hunched up in embarrassment.

Oh. _Oh._

“It’s got nothing to do with the banquet,” Yuuri replied hurriedly, watching as Celestino first stiffened and then sagged in visible relief. And then stiffened all over again.

“Wait. How did you-”

“Well, he had to explain why he showed up with the offer to coach me in the first place, right-”

“Yuuri! You just told me it had nothing to do with the banquet!”

“ _That’s not why he’s here!”_

It took a moment for Yuuri to realize that he’d yelled that last bit out, slamming his hands into the desk on either side of his laptop. Celestino looks taken aback, and Phichit is abruptly a whole heck of a lot closer than before, hovering behind Celestino with a searching look on his face.

Yuuri isn’t sure why he reacted the way he did. But, something about the- the _insinuation_ lying heavy in Celestino’s tone…

He isn’t blind. Or dense. From Victor’s behavior right after Yuuri had met him in the onsen, and later on when he narrated what happened at the banquet, Yuuri knew that it was very likely that Victor _had_ shown up because of something Yuuri had said or done while drunk. For all that Victor had explained what had happened, Yuuri wouldn’t be surprised if there were just as much that had gone unsaid – and it was quite possible that Celestino and- and _other_ people who had been at the banquet might had seen or heard what Yuuri had had to say, even if Victor wasn’t comfortable telling him everything.

But even if that might be the case, Yuuri could tell there was more to it. More to Victor’s decision to shift to another part of the world just on the potential of Yuuri’s request. If the only thing Victor had been after was a- a _booty call_ , if a particularly dramatic one, he wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as lost as he had when Yuuri said he didn’t actually remember what had happened the night of the banquet.

Having to hear someone he actually respected suggesting that there was nothing more to Victor’s decision but that- hurt. It stung quite a bit, and Yuuri isn’t sure when he decided it was his place to feel indignant on his idol’s behalf, but he _is._

“Ciao Ciao,” Phichit cut in, voice brusque, “I’ll tell Yuuri to call you back. Give us a minute, yeah?”

Celestino looks like he wants to protest, but he sighs heavily instead, glancing back towards the screen.

“We didn’t actually renew our contract for the next season, so I can’t exactly protest against your decision, Yuuri. But, please. Don’t make any decisions you might come to regret. You have a real gift, _topolino 1, _I don’t want to see you waste it.”

Yuuri frowns at the screen, caught between feeling touched that Celestino would care enough to be worried even when Yuuri’s dropping the news on him without any advance notice and feeling annoyed that Celestino didn’t trust him enough to make his own decisions. Phichit cleared his throat pointedly, and Celestino groaned, pushing himself up and out of the chair quickly.

“I’ll cover and leave your portion out on the table, I know how long your conversations can get,” he said, sighing when Phichit impatiently waved him away, dropping into the seat in his place.

“What banquet? Are we talking about Sochi?” Phichit asked immediately, once Celestino left, and Yuuri felt his face twist into a scowl.

“Not in the mood to talk about that. Not now.”

“Okay, okay,” Phichit waved the topic away breezily, but he bent forward to try and stare Yuuri in the eye to whatever extent he could. “You’ll have to share eventually though, Yuuri. Because the story won’t make sense if you don’t start at the beginning, right?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes, but the teasing grin on Phichit’s face made him relax ever so slightly.

“So. _Victor Nikiforov.”_

“ _Oh my God, Phichit.”_

Yuuri would have said more, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Yuuri blinked, and turned back to stare. He didn’t need to ask after who it was, of course. His parents and sister didn’t usually bother checking up on him at night. Not when they already knew how late he tended to turn in.

When he got up to get the door open, gesturing at Phichit to wait, he wasn’t surprised to find Victor on the other side, looking bleary eyed and slightly reproachful.

“I’m sorry, was I too loud?” Yuuri asked apologetically.

Victor shook his head, sagging just a bit in place.

“No, but you should be sleeping, Yuuri- we’re going to start training early tomorrow, and you won’t be up in time if you sleep too late.”

Yuuri knows he should be feeling irate at being lectured by two separate coaches one after another, but somehow, he can’t find it in himself to be angry with Victor. Not when he looks so tired and has that ridiculous pout on his face. Yuuri had seen Victor glance his way after dinner, teeth worrying at his lower lip in obvious indecision, but he’d apparently come to terms with whatever he’d had to ask and had turned in with nothing more than a soft smile and a warning to pay attention to the alarm.

Looking at him now, Yuuri wonders if he’d been considering asking Yuuri to sleep in the same room.

He mentally scolds himself for the assumption soon after, of course,

“I’ll be up in time, don’t worry. I’m usually very serious about training.” He said honestly. And he was. For all that Yuuri kept very irregular hours, one of the few things he was always serious about was his training.

Victor watched him carefully, then gave a slow nod.

“Okay. I’ll trust you to hold to that, then.” He said, voice oddly tender. It makes Yuuri blush, but not as much as before because he _is_ slowly getting used to just how over-the-top Victor can be, even about the little things.

“Okay. Good night, then.” Yuuri responded immediately, clutching at the doorknob like a shield when Victor reached out to tuck some of his hair behind his ear.

“ _Dobroy nochi_ 2 , Yuuri.” He said, smiling softly, before turning to head back to his own room.

Yuuri is left staring after him in a daze, at least until Phichit coughs loudly to catch his attention.

His friend is grinning beatifically when Yuuri returns to his table. Yuuri, heart still too full and face too red after his encounter with Victor, can do nothing but groan and bury his face in his arms when Phichit wiggles his eyebrows naughtily at him and repeats: “So. _Victor Nikiforov.”_

“I will steal your phone and camera the next time I see you and hide them away so you never find them again.” Yuuri warned, voice muffled just a bit by his sweatshirt sleeves.

“Ha, I’d be able to find them no matter where you hide them!”

“How about I find someone good with computers and get them to hack into your Instagram account.”

“You wouldn’t do that, Yuuri. You’re too nice.”

“Am I?” Yuuri countered, peeking over the wall of his arms. His expression is serious enough that Phichit laughs nervously and lets the topic go. With good reason – living together had taught them both several ways to get back at each other when necessary.

They spend the next thirty minutes just talking about their new training regimens, with Yuuri humming appreciatively over the intensive training Celestino has slotted in for Phichit to train his quad, while Phichit jokingly gagged over how crazily exhaustive the cardio workout Yuuri would have to contend with to get back into competition shape would be. He hadn’t let himself go completely off the rails, but his body had slowly deteriorated over time till he was closer to off-season, rather than being anywhere near actual competition shape.

By the time Yuuri finally cuts the line, he finds he can’t remember why exactly he’d been so agitated in the first place.

*

For all that Yuuri has been called a stamina monster and a training junkie for most of his life, the fact of which only got compounded after going through SAO and coming out mostly in one piece on the other end, there have been very specific instances in his life where he’s met his match. Maybe not necessarily in the case of the first, he’s never really been challenged in terms of stamina before, but the second? Yeah.

Minako-sensei had been terrifying enough pre-Aincrad, but once he’d gotten out and got it through her head that he didn’t blame her, she’d thrown her entire self into helping him get back to scratch. Yuuri had never had an official skating coach before he’d been approached by Celestino, aside from Yuuko’s mom, who had helped him out quite a bit unofficially when it came to technical training, but Minako had never let him feel the lack. And before he’d gotten out of Aincrad, well… Yuuri had spent his time solo grinding for the most part, but once he’d been acquainted first with Kirito and then later with Asuna-san, they’d both given him a good run for his money. Asuna could never really keep up with Kirito-nii in terms of being a training junkie, to be honest Yuuri himself had given up before Kirito ever did, but Asuna was the one who came up with the crazier ideas to train.

Yuuri always suspected the only reason Kirito’s weren’t crazier than hers was because he didn’t want to inflict his ideas of level grinding on either of them. But there was no way he would confess that to Asuna-san. She was terrifying the way his mom was terrifying whenever she actually lost her temper. And, anyway, Asuna-san’s training regimens were crazy enough by themselves – she and Kirito-nii were very alike in certain ways.

Even with that said, Yuuri was more than a little disturbed to realize that, Victor? Had them all beat in terms of setting up a regimen that actually _challenged_ Yuuri. To the fullest.

When Minako saw him close to passed out in the dining hall the first night after Victor started training him, she’d given a slow clap, and proceeded to dedicate her first toast of the night to Victor, to celebrate him somehow being the first person to actually knock Yuuri off his feet. Yuuri had been too tired to really protest out loud, even if he’d mostly resigned himself to the way he went red in the face, but he’d been pleasantly surprised when _Victor_ flushed prettily at the praise, pale blue eyes darting his way for a second before the older man shook off whatever it was that had gone through his head. And Yuuri had been forced to watch both his coach and his dance teacher cheerfully gorge themselves on his favorite food while he’d been forced to stick to lightly seared chicken and steamed vegetables.

Three nights of being forced through the same situation in a row, and Yuuri had snapped, demanding to know how exactly Victor planned to stay competition ready for later seasons if he kept eating foods that he’d claimed were too calorie rich for Yuuri to eat. Victor had stared back at him with the strangest look on his face before laughing lightly and explaining that his metabolism had always been good enough that he’d never had much trouble with high calorific foods. Or even large amounts of alcohol. His metabolism managed to chew its way through nearly anything no matter _what_ he threw at it.

…Yuuri had never understood the memes that Phichit kept tossing his way while living together, or even after, but that one moment registered crystal clear in his memory as the first time he’d vividly understood the meaning of the phrase ‘Urge to Kill: Rising’. Of all reasons to want to smother your idol in his sleep.

And no, Yuuri _didn’t_ mean that in any way except the murderous literal.

He was a little vindicated when Victor chose to go with squid sashimi over katsudon the night after their conversation, though.

Once Yuuri gets back into the swing of grinding, the days go by faster than before, particularly since the more in shape his body gets, the higher his base stamina rises. Victor had whined, once he’d gotten over the shock, that Yuuri’s body was _unfair._ Seeing as it had been nearing a month by that point - a month filled with far too many ‘coincidental’ caresses day and night and more skin-ship in the onsen than Yuuri could truly bear without losing at least some bit of his sanity by the end – it had been laughably easy for him to innocently tilt his head to the side and ask if it was too hard to keep up with him.

Victor’s expression had flickered between indignation and delight for a few seconds before he’d thrown his hands up in the air and walked away, calling out over his shoulder that he was ‘an old man and needed his rest before his heart gave out on account of pretty young things with too much stamina’.

Yuuri had found himself clinging to the boards and _giggling,_ of all things, a little shocked at himself - but Victor made it so _easy_ to laugh with him.

*

It wasn’t only the laughter. For some reason, everything when it came to Victor came easily to him. After the first two weeks, at any rate – those had been unbearable, with Victor trying too hard and Yuuri caught between mortification and helpless amusement. But the older man had calmed down a little, after that, had possibly settled in and gotten more used to the inn, and Hasetsu, and all the people in it. Victor before he settled in had been alluring the way pretty pictures and exotic things were alluring. Victor after, though- Yuuri finds himself watching the older man for longer and longer. Where earlier everything Victor did was worthy of admiration and observation, the more time Yuuri spent in his company, the more the imperfections that made him who he was rang true. Victor wasn’t anywhere near as perfect as Yuuri dreamt he would be – to be honest, Yuuri hadn’t met too many people as mean and petty as Victor could be.

As a coach, the older man was a hard taskmaster who oscillated between effusive praise and biting vitriol depending on how Yuuri did, and the more Yuuri watched him, the more he realized that the vitriol was a part of Victor’s nature the same way there were times when Yuuri couldn’t find it in himself to be nice. That had been a chief grouse on the part of Phichit, and on the part of Kirito-nii, too, before him. They’d both sworn that, while Yuuri was one of the sweetest people they’d ever met, there were times when he could be one of the nastiest and most exasperating, too. Yuuri remembers that line more and more often the longer he spends in Victor’s company.

 Victor… wasn’t kind. He was charming, had charisma in spades, could be affectionate with those he was particularly close to even if that affection showed itself in strange ways. But he wasn’t kind at all. He seemed to hold himself at a distance from the world, seemed to put in a screen between him and everyone else, and watch them like they were alien to him. He was a gentleman to everyone he met, even when he was irate or lost his temper in the slightest – but that wasn’t natural to him as much as it seemed to be a practiced habit to keep himself in check.

Yuuri hadn’t felt the need or the inclination to read so deeply into another person since he’d had no choice but to watch everyone he met with the unspoken assumption that they could stab him in the back, back in Aincrad. Asuna had mentioned, once, when she’d insisted that he come over to her and Kirito’s cottage on Floor 22 for dinner one night, that all solo players that had been through SAO, especially the ones who were good enough to get to the top like he and Kirito-nii had, were a little different from the rest. That they were more watchful, more suspicious of social interaction, that they found it difficult to settle. That they pushed themselves too hard and too fast. Even if Yuuri hadn’t actually spoken to any of them since the game had been cleared - Argo included, since he hadn’t actually spoken to her since she’d confirmed that Asuna-san and the other missing players had been rescued years ago – Yuuri had a feeling that she would say the exact same even now. Possibly especially now, since she would have had the chance to confirm her observations watching as Kirito and any other players those two knew settled back into RL.

But even if he hadn’t felt the urge immerse himself in the minutiae of someone like this in a while, Yuuri was still amazed by how easy it was to connect to Victor. He would have been terrified that he was making assumptions, that he was taking too many liberties, if he hadn’t noticed that Victor seemed to be watching him just as carefully most of the time. The other man didn’t even have the courtesy to keep his observation hidden the way Yuuri did, he just smiled softly whenever he caught Yuuri’s eye. It was terribly embarrassing, but Yuuri somehow found it in himself to not shy away whenever that happened.

It had only been a month, most of which had been spent getting back in shape and then strengthening his basics on the ice, quads included, but in that time, Yuuri had slowly began to realize that, while he still looked up to Victor the skater, and Victor his idol, and wanted him to stay so Yuuri could keep learning from him, he also simply wanted Victor the _person_ to stay.

Only a month, but that was enough. Yuuri already knew that he desperately wanted to get to know Victor the person better.

*

“That’s done it,” Victor murmured, and Yuuri started, gaze jerking away from the _ochoko_ cradled in his fingers, still filled with sake.

“What?” he asked, belatedly realizing that Victor had been staring at his phone with an exasperated look on his face for a while now.

“Yuri. Plisetsky,” he added when Yuuri frowned at him in confusion. “He saw the pictures I posted from the beach yesterday.”

Yuuri flushed a bit at that. Their trip to the beach had been fun, he didn’t deny it. And he didn’t deny that it had been a well-deserved break, after a month of training nearly non-stop. That, however, didn’t mean that spending any entire day beside Victor and no one to distract them from each other except for Makkachin and Vicchan hadn’t been nerve-wracking to some extent. The pit of tension in his gut and the throb at the base of his head slowly wore away over time, however, especially once he noticed just how little Victor had expected of him over the day. The other man had wanted to do nothing more than throw sticks and a Frisbee for the dogs, running laughing through the surf’s edge like a wild child. Seeing him standing covered in sand, salt and still damp from the water, smirking just the slightest bit when he’d caught sight of how fixed Yuuri’s gaze had gotten, had been about as distracting as Yuuri expected it to be. But none of that was _bad_ in any way – just. Different.

Yuuri had decided at some point that it was just easier to not over analyze his interactions with Victor. That way lay getting lost in his head and not wanting to face the world – and he didn’t have any convenient teleport crystals to take him to the various boltholes he had on lower floors to lay low for a while till he felt more in control. The lower floors because not too many people would recognize him on sight. Unlike the upper floors; partying with the Black Swordsman and the Lightning Flash one too many times had had the unfortunate side effect of making him a little more recognizable there.

“…just how many pictures did you post yesterday, Victor.” Yuuri asked slowly, because something about the cagey expression that was slowly making a home on Victor’s face told him he really didn’t want to know.

…Victor was as bad as Phichit. Or, at the least, as bad as Chris. Wasn’t he? Yuuri had never been personally involved in his picture taking, after all. But he’d noticed just how often he uploaded pictures on Instagram.

“-oh God. I should have confiscated your phone before we headed out yesterday.” Yuuri said distantly, because that’s what he would have done if it had been Phichit. Or, well. Maybe not Phichit. Phichit was his friend, and he could trust him not to post anything _too_ incriminating. Depending on his mood of the day.

He’d have confiscated the phone in a heartbeat if Chris had been involved, though. Even if Yuuri didn’t think he’s close enough to the Swiss skater to go to the beach with him. He really should have remembered.

Victor grimaced, and protectively hid his phone behind his back. Yuuri somehow resisted the urge to make a dive for it anyway.

“Not that many! _Yuuri,_ you had fun too, didn’t you? We took such nice photos together!”

That they did, but Yuuri was slowly starting to realize just how incriminating some of those photos could have been if Victor posted them out of context with no updates on any of his social media accounts for a whole month before hand. And Yuuri _knew_ there had been no updates – Phichit had been keeping him posted on the hysteria that had broken out amongst Victor’s fans over the radio silence. Yuuri had at least convinced Victor that it was a good idea to contact _his_ coach, sometime after they’d gotten a little more comfortable with each other, but from what he could tell, no one knew where Victor had gone. Until now.

 _Beach photos,_ Yuuri thought a little despairingly. _Why’d it have to be beach photos?_

“What was that about Plisetsky again?” he forced himself to ask. Because it was better knowing than not, right.

“…he commented on one of my photos.” Victor mumbled in a small voice, looking so dejected that Yuuri almost forgave him on the spot.

This was the flip-side to Victor the gentleman and Victor the charismatic asshole. Victor could be such an adorable _child_ sometimes, in spite of him visibly being every bit the attractive twenty seven year old celebrity athlete he was. No one had told Yuuri that his idol was going to be such a goofy _dork_ alongside being sharply attractive enough in mind and body to make people keel over with just a single sizzling glance. He could have used the preparation time to deal with the fact.

The longer Yuuri maintained his silence, the more Victor seemed to droop into the table before him, until Yuuri just gave in and sighed, reaching out absently to pat him on the head. He’s already in the process of thumbing some of the strands, testing the way they feel in between his fingers, when he catches sight of the stunned look on Victor’s face. And realizes that he _probably_ _shouldn’t be playing with his coach’s hair._

He squeaks and nearly makes a break for it, but Victor’s hand whips out and drags him back by the wrist before he can actually get anywhere. They’re at a silent standstill there, even with the regular evening rush of the inn’s dining room buzzing merrily about them, with Yuuri shaking a little in Victor’s grasp and, honestly, under the weight of Victor’s intent stare.

“Dinner-” Yuuri croaked out, and Victor’s fingers tightened.

“Hiroko-san usually brings it out for us, doesn’t she,” he said pleasantly, his eyes beginning to glitter, and Yuuri just had to look away.

“Well, it isn’t right for _me_ to expect her to bring everything out for us.”

The words were defensive at best, and sullen besides. Yuuri definitely heard the quiet little chuckle that escaped Victor when he tugged gently at Yuuri’s wrist, wordlessly asking him to stay. And forgiving him the liberties taken with Victor’s person besides.

He shivered a bit in place, when he felt Victor’s thumb gently brush over the inside of his wrist.

When he finally got around to looking back, Victor’s attention was back to his phone, grinning brightly and snickering to himself over some of the comments that had popped up in his feed. If it weren’t for the solid hold he still had on Yuuri’s wrist, Yuuri might have been able to think he’d completely imagined the entire thing.

A teasing little glance from beneath long lashes, a playful little quirk of his lips before Victor looked back down at his phone screen, and Yuuri had to swallow. Hard.

He didn’t think he’d ever need a reason to miss Victor’s more overblown attempts at flirting, but it was the little things like this that made him wonder if he wouldn’t have had an easier time if Victor hadn’t switched midway through the month to _subtlety._

*

A week later, and Yuuri was laughing into the bowl of vegetable and udon soup his mother had set before him. For once, he didn’t mind not eating katsudon along with the others no matter how much he might want to, because Yuri Plisetsky with a table laden with good food before him was too adorable a sight to really begrudge.

From the sly little smile that had stayed on Victor’s face ever since Yurio had shown up at the inn’s doorstep, he clearly agreed.

Yuuri still wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting after Victor’s reaction to the comments on his Instagram posts – which Phichit hadn’t reacted to with more than an ‘!!!’ in a private message, much to Yuuri’s relief – but it hadn’t been a whirlwind of a teenager who looked delicate enough to have been made from spun glass showing up on their doorstep. At least until he opened his mouth, at any rate. Because Yuri Plisetsky was one of the most foul-mouthed brats Yuuri had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Maybe there was some truth in Phichit and Kirito’s claims that his smiles hid a nasty personality inside, because even in spite of Yurio’s filthy language and bad attitude, he still couldn’t stop thinking of him as one of the most precious things he’d ever seen. It didn’t help that the boy had gone from screaming at Victor till he went red in the face to stuttering when he caught sight of Yuuri watching from behind them with raised eyebrows2.

“ _Molodaya lyubov? Kak milo, Yura_ 3!” Victor had cooed, when he caught sight of the expression on Yurio’s face. And Yuuri had spent the next fifteen minutes trying to make sure that no blood got spilt on the inn’s floors.

“He wanted me to come back with him to Russia,” Victor explained later in the night, curled up in Yuuri’s bed along with both their dogs. “I told him ‘no’.”

Yuuri, perched in the chair by his desk, nodded slowly, not sure what to make of the complex twist of emotion on Victor’s face. There’s a single moment in which it feels like there’s a yawning pit overtaking every possible future Yuuri can envision for the two of them, and he feels sick to the stomach and reeling until Victor calls out for him, voice heavy with worry. The obvious evidence of Victor’s concern for him, as well as the languid sprawl of him all over Yuuri’s bed – both a product of the month they’ve spent in each other’s company – calmed him faster than any words exchanged between them could.

He _does_ make the shift from chair to bed, though, reading the easy invitation in the cant of Victor’s head. Makkachin makes room for him with a soft grumble whuffed under his breath, heavily dropping his head into Yuuri’s lap the moment he’d settled down. Yuuri’s laughs softly, bending forward in place to press a kiss to the top of the overgrown puppy’s head. When he looks back up, Victor’s expression has been overtaken by something tender enough that he has to look away again.

“Do you want to? Go back, I mean,” he added the latter when Victor made a confused sound. It earned him an indignant grunt, and Victor bodily collapsing into him.

“No! I want to say here, with _you.”_

Yuuri jerks under the unexpected weight, then snorts, shooting the other man a wry look.

“Good emotion, great delivery. Now some focus on the actual wording so it conveys your wanting to stay here because you’re my _contracted coach._ ” 

He gets jostled for the sass, and an armful of whining Victor besides. And then a pair of dogs diving on top of the both of them in excitement, ending in him collapsing sideways in laughter. At some point it gets too hard to breathe and both him and Victor start giggling like children, trying to hold up under the onslaught of Makkachin’s affectionate slobbering. Vicchan is easier to manage, affection and all – Yuuri had realized that his parents getting a toy poodle had definitely been a blessing in disguise. Having two poodles the size of Makkachin around would have driven them crazy by now. Though Yuuri knew they’d have loved every second of it.

By the time they actually convince both Makkachin and Vicchan to simmer down again, they’re both exhausted. And it takes Yuuri a while to register that he’s flat on his back with Victor sprawled all over him. When he lifts his head to stare down at the top of Victor’s head archly, though, all he gets for his effort is a sneaky little grin before Victor ducks his face down to smoosh it into Yuuri’s chest again.

“Ass,” Yuuri said fondly, “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you planned that.” Making Victor’s shoulders quake with laughter.

They remained in companionable silence for quite a while afterwards there, in the twilight of Yuuri’s room, Yuuri even finding it in himself to push Victor to the side and curl into him properly, much to his delight. It’s only when Yuuri’s on the verge of actually falling asleep, surrounded by warmth and the now-familiar smell of whatever unpronounceable, unnecessarily expensive cologne it was that Victor was partial to, that Victor chose to speak up again, voice close to a whisper.

“I wouldn’t have gone back no matter what. You know that, right, Yuuri?” he whispered, and Yuuri blinked heavily, still a little sleepy.

“Victor?” Yuuri asked muzzily, half convinced that he was dreaming, but he let himself fall silent when he felt the kiss being pressed against his hair.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere unless you asked me to. I’m just grateful that you let me _stay,”_ Victor said, sounding pained enough that Yuuri had to reach up with his arms and pull him into a hug. Victor let himself fall closer, a little stiff since he seemed to have thought that Yuuri was too sleepy to actually register what he was saying.4

“I still don’t think I can fully understand why you’d want to come here,” Yuuri murmured into the hush, feeding the words into Victor’s ear, “But I don’t think I quite care anymore. I don’t want you to leave either.”

It must have been the dark of the room that made the confession come easier. Victor trembled in his arms like a bird about to take flight, or like someone broken given new life. Yuuri had had enough examples of the latter, but none of them had registered quite as vividly as Victor did, clinging to him with wet eyes and whispered words in Russian that made absolutely no sense to Yuuri, even if the tone they were conveyed in made his ears burn, and made his face light up with a shy smile.

They didn’t move for the rest of the night, murmuring to one another inanely, possibly falling asleep together at some point. And stayed put until Yurio slammed the door open in the morning, snarling like a scorned tiger cub. The mental image is enough to make Yuuri giggle into Victor’s shoulder, even as both Yurio and Victor yelled at each other over his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AN:** Gah, I’m sorry, this one got more delayed than I’d like. I’ve been trying to maintain at least a single chapter buffer between updates, or a double chapter buffer depending on how inspired I’ve been/how much time I’ve had, but I’ve barely been able to get much written at all offlate. So I held out until I got a bit more written. Apologies, dear readers, but I’m hoping that these buffers ensure that I’ll actually finish this fic sometime soon - the last six months or so haven't been easy for me IRL, and writing has been like pulling teeth. That said, this was supposed to be a _oneshot_ , damnit. If a monstrously long one. This is all your fault, **Lemon_dropz**. 
> 
> So, this should be finals week for at least a few of you. I hope you're doing well, and I hope you all enjoyed this, all the same! My god, your comments have been blowing me away. To the point that I actual squeak happily and flail in place whenever I get a notification for them. Again, while it’s been taking me time to get back to everyone (RL and thesis research strike again), rest assured that you will get a response. **Please consider leaving comments and kudos for this chapter too, if you liked it!** I’m always game for discussing Victuuri ridiculousness – SAO only seems to have made Yuuri _worse_ , hasn’t it. And wasn’t Yura cute? Methinks the precious child has a _crush_. *grins evilly* Expect more podium family interaction come the next chapter!
> 
> ***
> 
> 1: Topolino: Little mouse in Italian. Used as an endearment, either for children or loved ones. Yuuri gets the nickname early on because of how little he says to anyone, and it stuck even after Yuuri became a little more talkative after Phichit shows up. (Phichit, for his part, gets nicknamed Passeroto, or little sparrow, for how vast his dreams are, and how quickly he picks up pace and ‘flies’ once he actually settles in. His bird-like behavior and attention span also helps. Not to say that Yuuri’s dreams aren’t big, but… he doesn’t exactly talk about them, does he.) Again, I am not a native speaker of Italian. Please correct me if you think either of these nicknames are being used inappropriately here.
> 
> 2: Yurio doesn’t quite have a crush. That’s Victor riling him up just because he can. There’ll be more introspection on Yuri come later chapters, so I hesitate to spoil too much of it this early on. Suffice to say that he looks up to Yuuri. A lot. And hasn’t had any reasons to doubt his ability or mental strength till date. The bathroom scene in canon didn’t happen. As for the dance off… ahaha. That’s a secret.
> 
> 3: Okay, so, I have to ask. Do you prefer to see any Russian used in-fic in Cyrillic or should I use roman letters? I’d originally been sticking to Cyrillic, then I figured a majority of the readers coming by wouldn’t automatically be able to read Cyrillic, much like myself. I’d been sticking to the original script because I thought it would be more authentic that way. That said, if any of the words or sentences I use are incorrect, please let me know and I’ll either delete the phrase or edit it as necessary.  
>  _Dobroy nochi_ \- доброй ночи - Goodnight.  
>  _Molodaya lyubov? Kak milo, Yura!_ \- Молодая любовь? Как мило, Юра! – Young love? How sweet, Yura! 
> 
> 4: Explanations for Victor's odd amount of clinginess here are as follows. a)He's had more time to spend in Yuuri's company, and has no plans of leaving it any time soon. And even the thought of needing to leave against his will makes him a feel a copious mix of desperation and stubbornness, not to mention a good bit of irritation. Yuuri isn't taking part in the regionals here, guys, Yurio figured out where Victor was a whole lot later than in canon. b) Yuuri wasn't meant to hear any of this in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which Yuuri makes a decision that partially backfires on him - but it's somehow a win-win situation _anyway_. (And Victor is _always_ bad at other people's emotions. Poor guy.)
> 
> Trigger warnings at the bottom, as usual. If relatively mild for this chapter. Fluff! And mild angst. But mostly fluff.
> 
> **EDIT:** Poking my head in to say, you guys are awesome, and since some people have been asking, know that this isn't abandoned! RL has been kicking my ass recently so I haven't been able to get in as much motivation or time to write or pen proper mails - but the next chapter is 75% done. You'll get that update. And your responses. I love you all. ❤ (3/24)

“I can be a mercenary, Victor. A dreamer, a loner – a soldier, in a pinch. But I’ve never been asked to be a lover before.” He said hesitantly, curving in on himself, staring hazily down at his feet.

It was true. All of those were roles Yuuri had occupied in his time. And even if it had been nearing on a decade since he’d actually gotten trapped in Aincrad with everyone else, the life he’d led there, the harsh clarity of it, was something that had indelibly left its mark on him afterwards no matter what he did to hide it – so Yuuri gave up on hiding it well before he’d reached the international stage.

But being asked to don the robes of a playboy, who seduced an audience until they were out of control of their senses and proceeded to carelessly leave them behind? No, Yuuri had absolutely no experience with any part of that role.  Unless he cited secondhand experience, after watching some of the weirder situations he’d seen Kirito-nii get into, but Yuuri didn’t really think that would count. So, no. This wasn’t even a case of not being good enough; _Eros_ was so far out of his ability polygon that Yuuri didn’t even know where to begin performing it.

For all that they weren’t alone, both Yurio and Yuuko still calling out loudly at each other as Yurio skated dizzying sets of combination spins across the ice, both to show-off for an enthusiastic Yuuko and the triplets, and also to ‘ _prove he could, fuck jetlag anyway’,_ the silence surrounding him and Victor seemed startlingly private here, on the far side of the rink from the others. Victor remained silent for only another beat before he stepped forward, and closer.

Yuuri stiffened when he felt the other man’s fingers curl around his hip, tugging him closer. He didn’t really get the chance to protest, though, because Victor tipped his face up with the fingers of his free hand immediately after. When Yuuri followed the direction mindlessly, he found Victor a little _too_ close. Even closer than that first day after Victor had arrived at Yu-topia, a little too close for Yuuri to feel perfectly at ease. But his keen gaze was too riveting to even consider looking away.

“Never? Oh, Yuuri. Surely you jest.” Victor murmured, voice low.

Yuuri shivered in his grasp, tongue darting out to wet his lips. And felt his gut clench when Victor’s gaze dropped to his mouth, pupils visibly dilating.

“I-I’m _not_ seductive, though. And that’s what the program needs me to be. It’s not _me._ ” Yuuri said weakly, his hands reaching up a little aimlessly before stopping at the hemline of Victor’s shirt. The material was thin, nearly threadbare, clearly old and well-used. But it felt soft against Yuuri’s fingertips, and curled easily around his fingers when he found himself needing something to hold onto.

“Are you not. Oh, Yuuri,” Victor’s face tilted forward, even closer, and Yuuri had to close his eyes, jerking his face aside. “Yuuri. You managed to seduce me when you were _drunk,_ and dragged me all the way to your doorstep on the sheer force of the memory of a single night. Tell me again.

“Can you honestly say that you aren’t good enough for this program?”

Yuuri’s mouth had gone dry. His throat felt parched, and every breath his lungs heaved in, _molten._ As molten as the whisper of Victor’s breath against his ear, and the faintest brush of lips against Yuuri’s skin.

“ _Victor,”_ he bit out, shuddering when the other man dragged him even closer, one of his hands loosening it’s stranglehold on Victor’s shirt to slide up to his chest - in the attempt to maintain some distance between them.

“You might not remember that night Yuuri, but I do. And the sight you made, dancing without a care in the world, is one of the most mesmerizing that I have _ever_ seen.” Victor ground out, voice hoarse, and Yuuri _groaned,_ sagging forward in place, feeling too overwhelmed to stay upright.

Victor shifted his grasp, the fingers of one hand drifting from his chin to lightly settle around the nape of Yuuri’s neck, while he let go with his other hand to properly wrap that arm low on Yuuri’s waist. Yuuri’s fingers tightened on his shirt, and he blindly pressed his face into the crook of Victor’s neck, relieved, because this felt so much more comforting than before.

“Ah, дорогой1. If you told me this program was difficult for you, I would agree. That is the way I choreographed it. If you told me it’s out of your range of comfort, I would say, it is good for a skater to try new things. And I would help you gain confidence to skate it anyway. But never try to tell me this program is beyond you because you aren’t seductive, Yuuri. Or that you aren’t good enough. I will be very angry.”

Yuuri laughed feebly into Victor’s shirt, still reeling under the opposing emotions that had surged through his veins. Victor’s arms were grounding, though, in the face of that upheaval.

“Shouldn’t I be allowed to decide that? It _is_ my body, you know.” Yuuri said, but only once he was certain he could deliver the words with the teasing edge he meant to convey them with.

Victor jostled him in response, shaking him gently from side to side.

“No. Not when your decision makes you put yourself down.” He said, sounding irate, and Yuuri had to hide his snickers in Victor’s shirt, lest they got loud enough to actually attract Yuuko and Yurio’s attention. It was a miracle that they hadn’t already been caught.

Though thinking in those terms made him smile to himself, caught between awkwardness and something that made a thrill swoop through his stomach. Because they couldn’t get ‘caught’ unless they were doing something that was worth being embarrassed to be caught doing, after all.

Even a week earlier, and Yuuri knew he wouldn’t have been as ease with the thought as he was now.

“Лучик1?” Victor asked, voice rising up in a curious tone, and Yuuri hummed, tightening his grip for a long moment before letting go and stepping back.

Victor didn’t exactly let him get too far, his arms steady in their grasp, though he _did_ let the fingers of his right hand slip forward to cup Yuuri’s face. Yuuri let himself tilt into the gentle hold, smiling faintly up at the older man.

“Very well, the next time I decide to doubt my ability to seduce anyone, you’ll be the first to know.” He said, the curve of his lips stretching out into a smirk when Victor’s gaze sharpened.

“Anyone, you say?”

“Well, isn’t that the entire point of giving me _Eros_ for my short program, Victor? To seduce the entire audience before I leave them behind for something better?” Yuuri asked, smiling blandly even as he let his accent trip over Victor’s name.

Victor’s breath hitched audibly, eyes flashing wide, but they were interrupted before he could actually say anything out loud.

“OI! Shitheads! Get your fucking act together and get back here! I want Victor to show me the last part of my step sequence again!”

The flash of irritation that shot across Victor’s face made Yuuri stifle a snort, reaching up to tug at Victor’s fringe a little before smoothing the fly away strands behind his ear.

“Your brother calls. You should go help him out.”

“He’s no brother of mine,” Victor grumbled, lips pushing out in a pout. “And isn’t he your fanboy too?”

Yuuri snickered at that, giving way to full-blown laughter when he heard Yurio roar in indignation behind them, clearly having been close enough to them by that point to actually hear their words.

He settled down peaceably by Yuuko’s side afterwards to watch the younger blond chase Victor round the rink with loud threats to slaughter him on his knife shoes. The scene reminded him enough of the times Mari-nee or Kirito-nii had riled him up enough to illicit a similar reaction in him that he just _had_ to laugh again.

‘No brother of mine’ his _ass._ Even if neither Victor nor Yurio admitted just how much they cared for each other, Yuuri didn’t need to hear them say anything out loud. He knew a pair of siblings when he saw them.

*

“You and the old man get together or something, Katsudon?” Yurio asked snidely one morning, in the middle of their warming up before they could actually get on the ice.

The question makes Yuuri blink up at him, startled, torso and arms still stretched forward with his hands tucked around his feet.

“I’m… not sure what you’re asking, really, Yurio.” Yuuri replied, bemused. And traded the bemusement in for amusement, when the younger skater hissed like a wet cat at his words.

“How difficult is it to answer a question like that, anyway?! Did you or did you not get together with the old man?”

Yuuri gave him a tiny smile, and decided that it was a very good thing Victor had gotten double teamed by Minako-sensei and a few of the old regulars who dropped by the inn for a night cap like clockwork.

“I’m still not quite sure what you’re trying to ask me, Yurio. Victor is a good friend of mine now, I don’t deny that. But if you want to know anything about why he came here you should probably ask him directly.”

His piece said, Yuuri patted the teen on his shoulder and walked past him towards the rink, ignoring the way he was gaping with very little effort. It took Yurio a while, but he _did_ eventually catch up to Yuuri, but not before Yuuri had already gotten out onto the rink and had started practicing.

The first time Yurio had seen him setting up for a quad Loop, his face screwed up like he’d bitten unexpectedly into a lemon. Victor had nearly cackled by the boards, explaining over the sound of Yurio skating to the other side of the rink from them, that Yuuri’s training of another quad when he already had two he could consistently land in competition had impressed the teen. Let alone _that_ quad. Yurio yelled that nothing impressed him, and certainly not a pair of sappy idiots like ‘katsudon and the old man’, but the prickly defense only confirmed what Victor had said.

Yurio’s face twisted in the same way now, eyes going narrow in his head before he glanced away, starting easy with laps around the rink to warm up.

Yuuri came crashing down on the ice more times than he had any real success with the jump, but each time he tried it, Yuuri could feel the motions getting embedded in his limbs. Even if there was next to no chance that he would manage to succeed in landing it in competition by the start of the season, he had a feeling there was a good chance he would be able to get it down a few times out of competition by the time the second seeded competition began – and the chances of successfully landing it in competition would only increase if he was assigned to one of the later competitions.

What he’d really wanted to try to perfect was the quad flip, but Yuuri had already been experimenting with that one since he’d been in Detroit. Not that anyone knew except for Phichit – and Phichit had been sworn to secrecy. And the only reason _Phichit_ knew was because Minako had made him promise to never let Yuuri practice on his own. Because he had the bad habit of not stopping. And he’d had it for years – it only got worse alongside his anxiety. Because if Yuuri had enough bogging down his mind, he tended to forget that he had an actual flesh and blood body that needed to be fed to stay healthy in spite of reckless levels of training.

Even if it never got as bad as his first skating season after SAO had been cleared, it was apparently a serious enough problem that Yuuri had actually seen Celestino complaining about it to other coaches while at post-competition banquets or while getting together for meals between program days. Phichit had jokingly said that he’d heard rumors setting in about Yuuri having the reputation of being the biggest training junkie in the professional figure skating circuit.

Yuuri had laughed off the claim, because surely all professionals needed to do at least that much to maintain their edge? It’s what he’d done to make sure he stayed a clearer and didn’t fall too far behind, after all.

 By the time some part of his training haze has cleared, he found that Victor had already arrived, and was on the other side of the rink from him with Yurio, guiding him through the motions from up close. It made him smile, because even if Victor’s on-hands policy of coaching had been odd in the beginning, leading them through their choreographies by actually skating alongside them rather than calling out directions, Yuuri had to say he’d decided that he liked Victor’s method more. It made sense to actually train together when you were partying together, after all.  And training with Yurio had only cemented that good, familiar feeling.

It took Yuuri a little longer to notice that his mind had drifted towards the thoughts of partying with Victor yet again, and he hurriedly slapped a hand against his head, almost hoping it would physically shake the thought out of place.

He’d always found it amusing when Kirito-nii had complained about Asuna’s insistence on staying in a party to keep an eye on him, if only so she could track his health and status bars in her HUD. For all that he remained preferentially solo all the way till the end of the game, he _did_ understand to some extent why it might have comforted Asuna-san to have those details constantly available when it came to her husband – Kirito had always been too reckless. But he didn’t think he’d ever understood just how comforting those bars hanging beneath his own at the right hand corner of his vision were until he’d left SAO and realized he would never automatically be able to keep track of or measure the status of his friends and family again.

Being as close to Kirito-nii as he’d been, and to Asuna-san too by default, he’d always been bound to develop some… _strange_ ideas about parties. He just didn’t think those ideas had sunk into his head to the point that he would actually _regret_ not being able to send a party request to Victor, just so he could keep an eye on him. Yurio too, now that he’d actually gotten to know the teen.

…Asuna-san would probably be proud of how much he wanted to hold on to his friendship with Victor. And be even prouder of the strange need he’d developed to keep a watch on Yurio while he learnt his way around Hasetsu and the inn.

*

“How- the- _hell,”_ Yurio wheezed later, clinging to the boards for support.

Victor, in the process of leaning over the boards from the other side to hand Yuuri a bottle of water, gave a breezy little laugh.

“No. No, you don’t understand- _how?”_ Yurio demanded, somehow managing to turn himself around enough to reach out and catch Victor by his shirt sleeve, then determinedly tugged Victor his way. Victor went, though not without shooting a thoroughly entertained look at Yuuri. Yuuri, for his part, just watched them both with a look of quiet amusement, blotting out the sweat on his face with the towel Victor handed him earlier.

“How the fuck hasn’t he killed himself yet?” Yurio snarled out, once he’d gotten his breathing under control. Exchanging glances with Yuuri, Victor just shrugged. Said something about unfairly hot bodies and unfair stamina and Yurio proceeded to shriek in disgust and skate away.

Yuuri watched him go with raised eyebrows.

“You. Did that on purpose, didn’t you.” He asked, mild.

“Mm-hmm.” Victor replied, easily pressing his elbows down on top of the boards and then proceeding to rest his chin in the cradle of his fingers.

“I’m pretty sure you meant to make that sound as questionable as it did.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Yuuri had to cover his smiling mouth with his fingers. He turned around so he could lean against the boards, watching as Yurio started practicing the first half of his program again. Feeling Victor move closer behind him, Yuuri tilted his head out of the way so Victor could actually set his chin to Yuuri’s shoulder and watch with him.

“Don’t you think we should stop him?” Yuuri asked after a long, particularly pained silence, which they spent watching Yurio come close to losing balance more than once, too tired to actually stay upright.

“I learnt my lesson the hard way, Пряничек1. If that’s the only way he can accept it, we should leave him to it.”

Yuuri snorted, and tilted his head a little so he could nudge Victor with it. Victor sadly wasn’t joking about learning his lesson the hard way – he hadn’t spent their first two weeks ago just flirting like a fiend, after all. He’d also taken it upon himself to prove that he could keep up with Yuuri through his endless training, no matter what. He’d figured that, seeing as he’d been the one to come up with Yuuri’s training regimen, he owed it to Yuuri to keep up, no matter what Yuuko and Takeshi tried to tell him. Minako simply chortled meanly into her plum wine when it came up in conversation.

By the end of two weeks, not only had the more obnoxious attempts at flirting petered out, so had the insistence that he should be able to keep up. Instead, Victor got off the ice as soon as he started to flag, and he made it a point to drag Yuuri off too, citing a need to rehydrate and that breaks to let the lactic acid build up dissipate could only be a good thing. And while Yuuri had ignored every other coach to tell him that, he still found it a little hard to shrug off the long fingers that curled around his elbow to tug him bodily off the ice. And there was the added fact that this was _Victor._

The first time Takeshi saw Victor succeed, he’d blankly asked Yuuko if _that’s_ what they should have done. Used their bodies to make Yuuri listen. Yuuko had burst into giggles, Victor’s cheeks actually went pink before he tilted a sly smile their way, and Yuuri sputtered wildly before threatening to mow his older friend down with his skates. Since he didn’t actually have his beloved knives with him to throw in their place.

“You need to start telling me what exactly it is that you’ve been calling me,” he told Victor after another long moment. He felt Victor shake with laughter behind him, and sighed.

Yurio shot past them at high speed, but he still found enough energy to yell another ‘disgusting!’ at them on his way.

*

“Could- could you-”

Yuuri glanced up at Yurio with raised eyebrows. When the teen just shuffled in place, a little pink, he turned his gaze back down to his skates, continuing to lace them up firmly. It was probably best to wait him out. Waiting things out had usually worked with Silica when she’d been stammering too hard. It had worked with some of Yuuri’s younger rink mates in Detroit too.

“Could you help me with my step sequences!” Yurio blurted out, and Yuuri paused in place, not sure if he’d heard that right. Another glance upwards proved that yes, yes he had. Yurio looked too pink for it to have been anything else.

“-are you sure you don’t want to wait for Victor?” Yuuri asked warily, straightening up. And was treated to the sight of Yurio scoffing, tossing his head to the side in a motion that looked _exactly_ like what Yuuri had seen Victor do innumerable times to get his fringe out of his eyes.

“The old man? Why would I ask the old man for help with step sequences when I can ask you? You’re-” and here he slowed down again, voice tapering off into a mumble. But Yuuri _still_ managed to catch the ‘better’ hidden in it.

_He really likes your programs,_ he remembers Victor explaining the first night Yurio had come in. But only once Mari had led the teen away to get set up in the room connected to Victor’s. _I’m not sure if he watched them before Sochi, but he’d been an avid fan ever since then._

Yuuri had protested against the thought of any skater as good as Yurio being a _fan_ of his, but Victor had rolled his eyes, and said that Yuuri’s step sequences and spins were good enough, and his PCS average high enough, that there were probably skaters more experienced  and older than Yuuri who looked up to him. So it made perfect sense for Yurio to be inspired.

The words seemed a little more believable now, when he could see the stubbornly hopeful expression clearly outlined on Yurio’s face, honest in his appeal and more confident in making it without Victor around to poke fun at him. It made Yuuri smile back, charmed by how earnest Yurio could look despite his passive-aggressiveness.

“Okay, then. Let’s finish warming up, and you can tell me how I can help.”

Yurio actually _beamed_ for a split-second before he tucked his reaction away, hurriedly muttering something that could have passed for a ‘thanks’ if it hadn’t been so garbled, and then rushing out through the locker room door. Yuuri was left staring after him in bemusement.

Victor walked in on them in the midst of practice, with Yuuri spotting for the younger skater while he tried adding some of the changes Yuuri had suggested. Yuuri initially stiffened, not sure if Yurio wanted Victor to know he’d asked for help, then he settled again. If he and Victor were supposed to be working together it only made sense for Victor to know that Yuuri was guarding his blind spots, right?

Victor watched them both with a keen eye, nodding with a wide smile once Yurio stopped.

“Much better! I think you’re closer to understanding _Agape_ now, Yura!”

Yurio, not noticing Victor had walked in, actually yelped in surprise. And proceeded to yell at Victor, because obviously he couldn’t control his laughter at the reaction. Yuuri couldn’t help but notice that Yurio looked pleased at the praise, and possibly at the nickname – he looked much calmer whenever Victor stuck to calling him Yura over Yurio. Though he didn’t complain _too_ much when Yuuri and the rest of his family didn’t call Yurio anything else. Yuuri suspected that was largely the effect of his mom – good food tended to endear you to the giver no matter their faults, and Yuuri’s mom never even considered calling Yurio anything but that.

“I’m still not sure I get what he _means_ , though.” Yurio grunted later, when he and Yuuri were taking a break.

Victor was out on the ice on his own, doing at least some part of his own training – enough to keep his body in shape through an off season. Yuuri kept glancing back to make sure he wasn’t actually taking it easy; he didn’t think he would, though. If nothing else, training together for a month had confirmed for him that even if Victor had been blessed with the kind of metabolism most people thought wasn’t real outside of dreams and _didn’t_ need to be anywhere near as careful as Yuuri did, he still grinded his way through training just about as much as Yuuri expected someone at his level would. He was just more sensible about taking well-spaced breaks.

“About what, exactly?” Yuuri asked, looking back at the teen beside him.

“About _Agape._ I don’t understand why he isn’t satisfied – I’ve been doing _everything_ he’s told me to do for the last week and all he ever says is ‘you aren’t showing enough _feeling’_ and ‘you call this emotion _agape?’”_

Yurio’s voice took on a high pitched quality that sounded absolutely nothing like Victor’s baritone, but he captured the tone so perfectly that Yuuri had to slap a hand to his mouth to stop himself from laughing. Yurio shot him a sullen look at his reaction, and that just made it even harder not to laugh.

“He probably means you aren’t taking on the character well enough, Yurio.” Yuuri explained, once he successfully quelled the amusement burning in him. “He did say that _Agape_ was supposed to portray innocent, unconditional love. It’s a much better fit with your age-”

“I’m _not a child!”_

“-than _Eros_ would have been, don’t tell me you don’t agree with that.” Yuuri raised a single brow at him, daring him to try and argue. Yurio scowled, but he looked down at the cement flooring of the rink, clearly unwilling to deny it. Even if it had only been a week, it had become increasingly obvious that aside from any accusations of Victor choreographing the program to get into his pants – which Yuuri was a little awkward to address, let alone discuss – the program by itself was _meant_ to be skated by someone older. It wasn’t bodily flirtatious or blatantly sexual as much as it was _sensual,_ and that thin line of difference wasn’t something that would have been traversable by a teenager. Yurio might have the physical ability to do the program, even if he wouldn’t be able to backload it quite as much as Victor had been preparing Yuuri to do, but he would have hit a roadblock just as bad as _Agape_ when it came to emotion.

Yuuri had his own set of walls to climb over when it came to emotion. Victor would have been an easy inspiration if Yuuri needed to focus the ardor of his program’s character on a single person, but that felt _wrong._ Because the character was supposed to be a playboy, greedy and ambitious enough in his ploys to not have any real interest in any of the people being seduced – a game, as against actual emotion. And while Yuuri wasn’t a gamer, he _did_ understand games. It was just bad luck that this wasn’t a game he would have been willing to play personally – and especially not with Victor. But his problems could wait. Victor would actually be there to help him in person; Yurio had to fly back to St. Petersburg in less than a week. The only reason Yakov hadn’t been more infuriated with his disappearance than he already was, was because Yurio had been training for his short program the entire time he’d been away.

Yuuri sighed. He understood _exactly_ why Yurio was having a tough time, but Yurio didn’t seem to understand why it should be considered problematic at all. Or, maybe he did – and just didn’t want to admit that skating the routine perfectly wasn’t going to be enough. He might get his technical scores, but he would lose out severely on his PCS.

“Your skating is beautiful, Yurio. We already knew this – you’ve won gold at the junior GPF more than once and you couldn’t have done that without world-class ability. But we aren’t just skaters; we’re _performers.”_

Yurio scowled, but the way he was worrying at his lower lip said he understood _why_ the distinction between the two was so important. Yuuri gave a small nod, more for himself than for Yurio.

“I’m not like you or Victor, Yurio. I’m not a genius. No-” he sighed, shaking his head when Yurio looked like he wanted to protest. Which was heartwarming by itself, but that wasn’t the point, was it. “I’m no genius, Yurio. I train. I keep training, and I do well for a while, then I fall short again. And I have to level up my game. The only way I can make up for my flagging ability is by paying attention to the story I’m trying to convey – and even _I’m_ having trouble with what Victor’s trying to get us to do, here.”

Yurio stared up at him with big eyes, before blinking and pursing his lips.

“So what do you do otherwise? Not this time – I don’t want to know what the fuck you’ve got going through your head when you’re trying to skate _Eros, ugh_. That’s gross. But every other time. If you had trouble with your story.”

Yuuri had to fight off another bout of laughter at the pinched look on the teen’s face – he was starting to think it was less the possibility of anything going on between him and Victor and more the possibility  of ‘the old man’ being in a non-platonic relationship of any kind that had Yurio gagging all the time. _Younger brother._ Yuuri sure as hell didn’t want to think about what Mari got up to when she went on dates. And for all that he thought Kirito-nii and Asuna-san were perfect for each other, he _really_ didn’t need to know what they got up to behind closed doors. So he could definitely get why Yurio seemed so disturbed by even the thought of Victor pursuing anybody, let alone seeing it in person.

Not that Yuuri was perfectly comfortable thinking of Victor’s ridiculous need to flirt with him in terms of ‘pursuing’ in any sense. But he _did_ accept, if a little wryly, that he’d come to welcome the boundless affection Victor seemed to have, whether for Yuuri or for the idea of him. Yuuri was very well acquainted with the concept of being half in love with the idea of a person, even if he _had_ traded that awestruck love for the idea of Victor in for something more complex since the real Victor had swept into his life like a tsunami. So he couldn’t begrudge Victor’s emotions if that was the case for him.

“I haven’t always been the most… innovative when it comes to stories for my programs. In fact, _On Love: Eros_ has to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to skate because it nearly feels alien to me. You might be better off asking someone else for tips if you’re not sure about how to frame a story that isn’t immediately striking a chord in you.”

Yurio scoffed.

“And whom would I ask, that dumb blond out there? He’d just make fun of me. And Georgi…. _tch,_ he’s too dramatic. It would be worse than asking Victor, and _nothing_ should be worse than asking Victor for anything; he’s insufferable enough as it is. Mila would just make fun of me, too. And I don’t know the other skaters at our rink well enough to talk to them about something like this.”

_And you’re okay with asking me, even if you’ve known them and skated with them for longer?_ Yuuri wondered bemusedly. He was a little touched, though. For all that Victor had been cracking jokes about Yurio being a fanboy, he hadn’t thought the younger skater actually respected him enough to ask him about something like this. And it was a very different sort of respect than Yuuri was used to seeing, not just in context to himself. It would have been easier to swallow if Yurio could be placed into the role of a _kouhai,_ he was certainly young enough to qualify, but this wasn’t exactly a _kouhai_ asking for help. No – Yurio had approached with full faith in his own abilities and with full faith in _Yuuri’s_ abilities. This was him reaching out to a senior skater whose work he respected with the full assumption and expectation that he would be treated like an equal based on the quality of his own work.

…some might have taken that with some degree of offence. But for Yuuri, it was a breath of fresh air. Because he remembered being where Yurio was now, even if he’d never let himself acknowledge it. Yuuri had been the youngest Clearer in Aincrad; the only people in the same age range as him had been Kirito-nii, Asuna-san and other people their age. And Kirito-nii was a full year older than him. Yuuri had been small for his age, he hadn’t started to grow until a year _after_ SAO had been cleared – none of the older clearers had been comfortable talking to him directly. And Yuuri had felt too uncomfortable to try changing the status quo, even when he was multiple levels higher than many of them.

Kirito-nii had always said it wasn’t worth trying to force people to change their perception of you – hard work and discipline always shone through.

And it _had,_ eventually, for Yuuri back then. And it did in the here and now, in Yurio’s case. His skill needed no introduction at all – and he had every right to expect to be treated like an equal. Yuuri was ruefully amused by how self-confident he was in his appeal. He doubted he’d ever be able to present himself before anyone with nearly as much faith in himself, let alone someone he looked up to.

…Victor propositioning him in the onsen had managed to break more than a few walls, honestly. Yuuri didn’t think he could have spoken to him anywhere nearly as freely as he did if they hadn’t spoken directly about why Victor had decided to come to Hasetsu in the first place.

Yurio was still watching him, gaze oddly cautious. And, _oh._ All that belief in Yurio’s self-confidence, and it wasn’t anywhere near as simple as that, was it. It was never easy to approach someone you looked up to. Yurio was simply brave enough to throw himself out there, no matter what the outcome was in the end.

“If you really think my methods will help you best,” Yuuri said finally, “I would say, first try to clearly define the theme to yourself. What story does the music tell you? Does that story change the way the choreography works for you? What exactly does _Agape_ mean to _you,_ Yurio. That’s all you need to care about. Not the audience, not the judges, not even your coach or rink mates. And certainly not me or Victor.

“Is there anything or anyone you’ve loved unconditionally?”

Yuuri watched as Yurio’s eyes went hazy, trying to take apart the words in his head, his eyes narrowing in thought. And tried very hard not to remember the smirk Victor had pressed between his shoulder blades while telling _him_ that the audience’s interpretation of _Eros_ didn’t make anywhere near as much a difference to the program as Yuuri’s own interpretation of it did.

_So what_ does _Eros mean to you, Yuuri?_ He’d asked, voice dripping with heat, and Yuuri had had to shove him away and duck all the way down into the pool they were sitting in, scowling up at him through the steam hanging low over the water. While simultaneously trying to ignore the other people in the onsen, all valiantly Minding Their Own Business, because it was either that or give in to mortification when Victor was soaking in the onsen at the same time as him.

“I think we should all go to a waterfall,” Victor caroled, as he stepped off the ice. “Isn’t meditating in a waterfall supposed be good for increasing concentration and intensity?”

“No. No waterfalls. The temple was bad enough, Victor, we aren’t characters in some Hollywood inspired martial arts training montage,” Yuuri said, exasperated. Yurio, surprisingly, didn’t respond at all. When Yuuri looked back towards him, it was to find that his expression had gone soft with wonder.

“Oh,” Victor murmured, _sotto voce,_ as he stepped closer, for once trying his level best not to distract Yurio from what he was doing. “Looks like whatever you told him worked, Yuuri.”

“Looks like it did,” Yuuri agreed, voice just as quiet.

He was glad. This wasn’t a matter of life or death the way SAO and Aincrad had been, Yuuri _knew_ that, but it was relieving sometimes, when he met people who took skating as seriously as he did. It made the sport worth every bit of effort he poured into it, and into the grinding he needed to do to maintain his edge. It was always worth having more people on the same level, after all. And games weren’t fun unless you had to compete with the best to win.

_Not a gamer,_ Yuuri thought in response to the Kirito in his head. And reached out to tap Yurio on the shoulder. Because, if Victor was done, they could break for the day and head back to the inn.

*

“You need to understand,” Yuuri found himself trying to explain one quiet night, after Yurio left for St. Petersburg, “That I might… not be okay. After I finish skating.”

Victor, dozing against the headboard of his bed, arms curled around one of his pillows, stared up at Yuuri blearily, clearly not understanding what he meant. It made Yuuri swallow drily, wondering if he could act like he hadn’t actually said anything, since Victor looked tired enough that there was a good chance he’d believe the lie.

Lucidity was quickly returning to Victor’s eyes, though, the hooded and hazy quality of his gaze sharpening the longer Yuuri fidgeted in place. He didn’t actually say anything, though, watching Yuuri expectantly instead. The _patience_ was something that made Yuuri’s heart feel too full, sometimes. His parents had always been understanding, and never really pressurized him, while Mari and Minako had been willing to give him space while making sure to ask him questions and keep him focused when they thought he needed it. Phichit had always been the best person to turn to when he needed to be distracted from the noise crowding inside his head, he could manage it a whole lot better than even Yuu-chan and Takeshi and _they’d_ been the ones Yuuri had turned to when he’d been younger when his mind had been ticking too fast to stop.

But Victor? Victor was different – he didn’t give Yuuri space and distance as much as he stayed silent by Yuuri’s side, willing to wait him out till the noise quieted. The patience he had seemed nearly inexorable, and unconditional in a way that Yuuri might have expected from the family and friends he’s grown up with, but not from a man he’d truly known for a little over a month. Not when that man was _Victor,_ someone who’d been his dream for long enough that it felt very difficult to remember a time when he wasn’t.

It didn’t help that that time was well before Yuuri had gotten locked into SAO – it was alien to Yuuri in a way little else was. He didn’t remember who he was before both SAO and Victor combined. SAO might not have made him the person he was, and it hadn’t influenced his dreams at all, but it had changed the way he viewed the world enough that he couldn’t remember viewing it in any other way.

“I… I get. Anxious.” He said. Tried to say, even if he had the sinking feeling he wasn’t making much sense. But Victor nodded back slowly.

“I- I used to stop, when I was younger,” Yuuri went on, a little heartened by Victor’s willingness to just listen, “I’d just. Stop. I wouldn’t be able to keep moving and I’d just need to stay still for a while because my head was filled with too many conflicting thoughts to keep thinking. It got- better-”

Not that it really did. It didn’t get better as much as Yuuri’s anxiety and the way it affected him… _changed._ It evolved over his time in Aincrad until Yuuri got to the point where he could shove it down. It wasn’t a healthy way of dealing with it, since he wasn’t working through the anxiety as much as he was locking it down tightly till he couldn’t lock it down any more. It gave him attacks worse than the ones he’d suffered through before SAO, but- even if it wasn’t healthy, he was able to control it so much better this way that he’d never tried to get over it. Over time, and with increased ability in RL, he’d managed to avoid the worse attacks, the ones that made him black out, but something told Yuuri that he wouldn’t be able to get through the Cup of China without _something_ going wrong.

He hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to _think_ about it. But he knew he had to at least _try_ to warn Victor beforehand, because, Victor? Victor wasn’t Minako. He hadn’t watched Yuuri grow up, he hadn’t seen any of his panic attacks when he was younger, and Yuuri didn’t want to blindside him. Not when there was a good chance he would be verging on catatonic after he finished his free skate. And not when the time leading up to it would slowly make Yuuri draw away from the world and into himself.

Victor didn’t deserve to be hit with that without at least _some_ kind of warning. Right?

But Victor just looked more worried the more Yuuri tried to speak, till Yuuri felt his throat lock up, because he couldn’t bear that look of doubt on Victor’s face. Anyone else, it would have hurt, but Yuuri could have taken it and kept moving. But, not Victor.

“Yuuri,” he whispered into the taut silence between them, “Yuuri, what can I do?”

Yuuri shook, hands fisting in the sheets. When Victor reached out for them, he pulled back reflexively, wincing at the hurt that flashed across Victor’s face before the other man tucked it away.

Victor scrubbed a hand through his hair, pushing it up and back. He didn’t look irate as much as he looked exhausted. And still, Yuuri couldn’t find it in himself to speak.

“Yuuri, I’m _bad_ with things like this. You have to tell me what to do.” Victor repeated, and Yuuri wished for a split second that he hadn’t said anything at all. It wasn’t until Victor went still, staring at him, that he realized his cheeks were wet.

“Дорогой1…” Victor said, sounding about as pained as Yuuri felt, but Yuuri cut him off with an impatient shake of his head.

“I don’t want you to _do_ anything – that isn’t why I’m telling you about any of this. I just- I just want you to be there! _With_ me!” he snapped, the words tearing themselves out of his throat, and Victor reared back as though he’d been slapped.

“Just- I know I make things difficult, and I know my issues aren’t easy to bear, but you’re one of the best things that’s happened to me- I skate so much better just with you there by my side, and I feel so much better about what I’m doing. I wanted to warn you because I didn’t want to scare you, but you don’t have to doubt me or do anything for me. Just- stay beside me!”

Before he quite knew what was happening, Yuuri found himself being dragged up into a tight hug. The sudden encroachment on his space nearly made him lash out, but the familiarity of the scent of Victor’s cologne, still lingering against his skin, slowly made Yuuri relax in place.

“Thank you. For trusting me.” Victor said, voice soft, and the words were unexpected enough that they startled a wet laugh out of Yuuri.

“That isn’t want I meant. I just thought you should-”

“You wanting to warn me at all implies _trust,_ Yuuri- I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you to finish speaking.”

The laugh this time was a whole lot more watery than the first. Yuuri would _never_ stop being surprised by how Victor always met him halfway.

“I- I’m not as bad as I used to be. But depending on how bad it can get, I might- I _have_ blacked out, before. A lot of times. Minako-sensei might be able to tell you more about those- she was still traveling as my coach back then.”

“And this has been happening for years?” Victor asked him, sounding horrified. Yuuri raised a shoulder in a partial shrug, not looking up at him.

“I’m usually good at hiding myself before I have a meltdown. Phichit-kun saw me break down one or two times in Detroit, but I’d been too focused on levelling up my skills while I was there. The pressure wasn’t as bad. The first time I tried for the Senior Grand Prix, I was anxious, but I didn’t black out afterwards. I used to black out a lot more before I reached the senior division.” He explained quietly.

Victor nodded, and Yuuri could feel the other man press his face into his hair. It made Yuuri smile weakly, and smooth a hand down his back, trying to comfort him.

“It’s no one’s fault I’m like this, Victor. But it’s always better for people to know. Especially my coaches. And you- You’re-” he broke off, a little embarrassed, but he felt more than he heard the chuckle that escaped out of Victor, rumbling deep in his chest.

“I’m?” he goaded, pressing a smile into Yuuri temple, and he couldn’t help but smile back, a little shy.

“You’re. More than a coach to me.” He said, soft, and felt Victor shiver in his arms.

When the other man finally pulled back, he had a pout on his face.

“You’re so _cruel,_ Yuuri. Telling me something like that when I need to get to bed. You won’t even sleep here and keep me company.”

Yuuri blinked up at him. And he first went stiff, then he went red. The expression on his face was apparently amusing enough that Victor’s pout dissolved into a teasing little grin that had Yuuri groaning and hiding his face.

“If I’m cruel, you’re _terrible,”_ he grumbled. “Stop _saying_ things like that.”

“Things like what?” Victor asked him sweetly, trying to tug him closer by the material of his shirt, hanging loose over his flanks, but Yuuri didn’t go easy, aiming a glare at the other man over the tips of his fingers when all that did was make him laugh.

“I give up,” Yuuri groaned, aiming for disgust and coming away with fond exasperation “Here I was, trying to be serious, and _you-”_

He broke off with a surprised inhale of breath, because Victor abruptly leaned forward to press a kiss against his forehead, lips brushing gently against Yuuri’s skin while he spoke.

 “I,” said Victor, while Yuuri tried desperately not to throw himself backwards or spontaneously combust on the spot, “Heard everything you were trying to tell me. I might not have understood all of it, but I _want_ to. And I’m happy you chose to talk to me about it in the first place. At least now we can figure things out together if something goes wrong, Солнышко1.”

“I- You really need to stop-” Yuuri stuttered, not sure about what exactly he wanted to say. Not when he could _feel_ Victor’s lips curling up into a smile. That, at least, made him try to sober up and pull away.

“I really need to sleep, I just feel tired now. We can get back to choreographing the free skate tomorrow, right?” he said quickly, and was met with a soft smile from up close that made him swallow the rest of what he tried to get out.

“Then you should sleep,” Victor agreed, and made no move to let go.

The grip of Victor’s hands, his arms, wasn’t actually tight enough to make Yuuri feel cornered. If anything, the hold felt _warm,_ and gentle enough that Yuuri _knew_ he could get away with next to no effort. That was the point, though, wasn’t it. For all that the emotions welling up in his chest made him feel conflicted, the fact of the matter was obvious enough to him. To them _both._

Yuuri didn’t _want_ to get away.

He stared up at Victor, eyes huge in his head, and Victor sighed, leaning forward to press their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softly, “Should I-”

“N-no,” Yuuri broke in, voice cracking just a bit, and letting his eyelids slip shut almost reflexively. “You don’t… have to.”

Victor was silent for a long moment, and then, he suddenly snorted with laughter. The sound was weird enough, especially from up close, but hearing Victor of all people make it was undoubtedly weirder. Yuuri cautiously slit one lid open, squinting at the other man, but it was only to find that Victor still had his eyes closed.

“Look at us,” Victor murmured, “How old are we, I wonder.”

Yuuri felt his lips curl up in spite of himself, and he let his eyes shut again.

“Please,” he replied, “ _You’re_ the older one.”

The predictable explosion and flat out _whine_ the words drew from Victor had Yuuri laughing a little helplessly. But, somehow, the exchange left him feeling lighter. Even when Victor peered up at him cautiously afterwards, one hand tightening in the sheets while the fingers of the other slipped around Yuuri’s wrist as he stood up. Yet another of Victor’s open-ended, silent invitations. Yuuri’s almost relieved that he isn’t actually _asking_ out loud – it made it easier to breathe. And speak up in return.

“I still need to prepare for bed,” he said, and it wasn’t a ‘no’. He had to smile when Victor’s shoulders loosened immediately, and the grip on his wrist lightened enough to be more a caress than not.

Returning to a darkened room later was a little unnerving. But seeing the corner of the sheets on one side of the bed downturned for him had him stepping in, sliding the door shut behind him, and cautiously slipping into the bed – all done with him holding his breath. It left him with a gasp when Victor turned around almost immediately, tugging him closer for a hug.

“Hey,” he protested, shock quickly replaced with amusement when Victor shoved his face into the crook of Yuuri’s neck.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Victor mumbled after a moment.

“Didn’t I say I would?” Yuuri asked, bemused, one hand raised up and held just above Victor’s head in indecision before he sighed, giving in to the urge to run his fingers through the older man’s hair.

Victor hummed under his breath, tilting his head into the fingers gently tugging at his hair, but he didn’t actually respond in words. Yuuri… could understand why, though. A large part of him was still skittishly wondering what the heck he thought he was doing, getting into the same bed as Victor this way, taking liberties with his person, but- it wouldn’t be the first time, would it. Even if it was the first time they’d actually _planned_ on falling asleep in the same bed.

“Vicchan? Makka?” Victor asked softly, voice already heavy with sleep. And sounding oddly content. Yuuri sighed, reaching up to tug off his glasses, blindly reaching out to drop them onto the nightstand beside the bed.

“I think I saw them both curled up on my bed. They’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night and come back here, knowing them,” Yuuri replied, squinting into the dark, then tilting his head forward to press a kiss to the crown of Victor’s head before he could second-guess himself.

Victor went still, then sighed, pressing a smile into the skin of Yuuri’s throat.

“Wow, Yuuri. I thought you wanted to sleep,” he said, making Yuuri groan, making to turn away. But Victor’s arms sat heavy over him, pulling him close, and he decided he felt too comfortable to really make any more effort to escape.

“Sleep. Now. We need to get up early tomorrow, right? _You’re_ the one who keeps going on about Aeroflot when I’m more than a minute late down to breakfast.”

“That’s because you look cute when you scowl at me while you’re half asleep.”

Yuuri is hard-pressed not to squeak at that. He _does_ manage to deftly pinch Victor in the side to get back at him, though. Even if the flush heating his cheeks doesn’t die down for a while afterwards.

*

He isn’t quite sure _when_ they fall asleep, but Yuuri wakes up the next morning feeling more at peace than he has been in a while. It makes discussing skate costumes less daunting, later that day, when Victor surprises him with multiple suitcases and trunks filled with his old skate costumes.

“He told me to pick _from online pictures,”_ Yurio snarled over the speaker phone when Victor set it out on the table at his behest, around dinner time. He sounds incensed enough that Yuuri hunched over the table, trying not to laugh into his food, because that would only make the teen more murderous.

“It isn’t _my_ fault it took you so long to learn the program, Yura – if you’d gotten the hang of it sooner we could have picked together here!”

“ _As if!_ You were too wrapped up in katsudon – admit it! You forgot all about our costumes!”

“Well, I’m the choreographer! If you wanted more time to pick through _my_ old costumes, you should have asked first!”

When Yuuri peeked up, he found Victor wearing a bright, teasing grin, and he _knew_ that Victor didn’t even mean most of what he was saying. He was just trying to rile Yurio up as much as he could in as little time possible.

It reminds him enough of Kirito-nii’s nasty sense of humor that he distantly wonders if Asuna-san and Liz-san would _ever_ let him live it down. If he ever got the chance to introduce Victor to Kirito-nii and Asuna-san. Maybe the others, too. It’s a dizzying thought, imagining the two halves of his life colliding that way. Especially since the only way he could even consider introducing them was if he warned Victor about SAO in advance.

The thought makes him prop his chin up on his folded arms, smiling fondly when Victor aimed a heart-shaped smile his way, still poking at Yurio to see just how far Victor could push him. Yuuri knows, he just _knows,_ that hearing about SAO would break Victor’s heart. It certainly broke Phichit’s, when he found out. And even if Yuuri hasn’t known Victor Nikiforov for anywhere near as long as Phichit, not Victor Nikiforov, the man, the individual, the charismatic dork with his heart-shaped smiles and his stinging barbs when he was irate – he would like to think he knew Victor well enough to know just how badly learning about Yuuri’s part in SAO would hurt him.

Victor had switched over to Russian, cooing at the phone and being met with louder and more violent sounding snarls over time, at least until Yurio’s voice was abruptly replaced with Yakov’s, who proceeded to yell into the phone and sound _even louder_ than Yurio. And Victor just looked more delighted, laughing breathlessly.

He’s the most beautiful person that Yuuri had _ever_ seen in his _life_. And he couldn’t hurt him like that. Could he?

“Flies, little brother,” Mari-nee murmured to him, sitting down with a plate of her own. It made Yuuri roll his eyes, not looking away.

“My mouth was closed,” he said, and ignored the way her shoulder jostled his.

There was time till Victor strictly needed to know, after all. And even if Yuuri still didn’t feel good enough to skate on the same ice as him… over time, spent in his company, Yuuri was slowly starting to realize and accept that _Victor_ thought he was good enough to stay beside. Even if Yuuri really couldn’t understand why.

Victor would understand, when Yuuri told him about SAO. It would hurt, but he would understand. He always met Yuuri halfway, after all. And even if the confession of what he’s survived through was nerve-wracking, it wasn’t anywhere near as uncomfortable as the thought of disclosing his dark past to anyone else who was Japanese.

He wouldn’t have to deal with _social_ pity, of all things. And after being spared that kind of pity by virtue of living in Hasetsu, he really didn’t want to have to see it in the face of the man he was slowly starting to realize he wanted to party with, and _stay_ partied with, for as long as he possibly could. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGERS:** Miscommunication on the topic of anxiety, in that Victor is initially unable to fully understand what Yuuri is trying to describe. Yuuri has a partial breakdown. He handles it. And Victor's there to comfort him, too. Even if he's kind of terrible at taking care of people. Honestly, if you could handle the show, you can handle this chapter. That said, the previous trigger warnings continue to hold good. 
> 
> ***
> 
> **Translation notes for anyone on mobile or who misses the hover text.**  
>  1: Дорогой – Darling/Sweetheart. Dorogoy.  
> Лучик – Little sunbeam. Luchik.  
> Пряничек – Gingerbread. Pryanichek.  
> Солнышко – Sun/Little sun. Solnyshko.
> 
> 2: Is that… confirmation you see? Slow acceptance and realization of the fact that there’s more going on here than lots of skin-ship and vague attraction between particularly affectionate friends? Be grateful because, if it weren’t obvious, Victor doesn’t have any such confirmation. *laughs evilly*
> 
> 3: Not a note for a specific part, but... the reason Victor's trying out so many nicknames? Is because he's literally trying to figure out which one fits Yuuri best. Lots of sweet nothings for his Yuuri. Yuuri's probably lucky he can't understand what he's being called, else he'd spontaneously self-combust.
> 
> ***
> 
> **AN:** Gah, it's been a while, hasn't it? And here I am posting a new chapter without having been able to finish responding to everyone like I promised to, previously. It's just that, it's YOI's first anniversary, and I just thought it was the right time to post, even if I'm still getting uptodate with my responses. I don't really have much of an excuse for how long it's been, but I will say that the past few months have been _really_ tough for me IRL. I'd also been in the process of graduating. Now that I'm on the other side of a second graduate degree and a really big residential move... well. Here's hoping I have more time and mental energy to write and be active online again!
> 
> Happy First Anniversary, everyone! I can't believe it's been a whole year since this crazy, wonderful fandom came into being. And somehow, at the same time, I can't believe that it's _just been one year_. Wow. ( _Amazing_.)
> 
> It's been roughly five months since I've been able to update this, and in the meantime, we've.... somehow. Crossed 1k kudos?! Have shot all the way to the 1300s, even. You're all so kind to me, I can't believe that this weirdass idea managed to hook so many people. And your comments, I just - let's just say that, for however tough the past few months have been, reading what you have to say about this fic and my writing has made things better. And brighter. Thank you so much. 
> 
> **Again, as mentioned in the earlier chapters, you'll definitely get your responses. Even if I've slowed down dreadfully.** And please consider stopping by to say something here as well, if you enjoyed reading this chapter! Stuff was all over the place here, what with Yurio and Victor and finally the miscommunication. Don't worry, they'll be stronger for it.
> 
> Also, I now have a Tumblr blog! It's a writing and a general fandom blog, but with definite emphasis on YOI and KHR. You'll also see status updates there, if I disappear for a while. Either way, come say hi over at [@adelmortescryche](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com/). I don't bite. *grins*
> 
> **And if you're heading to Tumblr, don't forget to check out[@ayahne's](http://ayahne.tumblr.com/) flat-out _gorgeous_ fanart for this fic!** That's right, there's now art to go with the writing. And a really stunning cover image that I still need to figure out how to attach to the first chapter... well. Just click [here](http://ayahne.tumblr.com/tagged/a-heart-of-blades/), and go flail at her!


	5. Interlude I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or that one in which the POV temporarily shifts, meddling happens, and Asuna gets to be badass. As is her right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, been a while, hasn’t it? *awkward grin* Not too much I can say about why it’s taken this long for an update – it’s been a combination of different kinds of health issues, family and other stuff that slowed me down, aside from how much the fifth chapter struggled with me before it got done.
> 
> If you haven’t been following my writing updates on Tumblr – this got written a while back, but I’d been trying to get the fifth chapter done before considering posting! To be honest, I’d wanted to wait until I could make more headway on my responses to your frankly outstanding comments before updating AHoB. 
> 
> Except my laptop’s keypad is malfunctioning – enough so that using it to type just gives me a headache now. Getting it till the technician will take some more time, and responding on my phone or iPad takes long enough that I simply decided it wouldn’t be fair on my part to hold back completed content because of logistical issues.
> 
> So, here you go. Have some protective siblings, friendly internet stalking and, well. You'll see. The next chapter will be up as soon as I’m done editing it. For readers who aren’t familiar with SAO, just view this as a fun Outsider POV on Yuuri and Victor. *wry grin*
> 
> WE ALSO HAVE MORE ART. It's so adorable, I swear I squealed shrilly enough to break windows when I received it. Go shower **[@landofdrawsandfrogs](https://landofdrawsandfrogs.tumblr.com)** with your love: [Art I](https://landofdrawsandfrogs.tumblr.com/post/166927218976/ok-this-is-from-yesterday-when-the-pressue-still), [Art II](https://landofdrawsandfrogs.tumblr.com/post/166929761776/my-children-i-love-them-have-yuuri-and-kirito)
> 
>   **No trigger warnings for this interlude - it's mostly fluffy family and friendship stuff.**

He was sitting and staring at his laptop screen again.

Asuna sighed, not sure if she should laugh or not. It was very tempting; Kirito got this _look_ in his eyes, when he found something that had managed to capture his attention wholly.

…he was staring a whole lot more than was normal, though. Enough so that she was getting curious. So she carefully crept up on him, taking care not to make any sound. His head tilted a bit to the side when she got close enough to touch _anyway,_ though. Obviously.

“The triplets posted something again,” he said mildly.

“Again?” she asked bemusedly, setting a hand down on his shoulder so she could duck closer to watch. You’d think there were only so many Yuuri amvs they could come up with, but-

And yes, there he was, running through a program that looked… uncomfortably familiar.

“….this _is_ only on their private channel, right?” Asuna asked, just a bit worriedly. Because she still remembered just how private little Yuuri could get.

A video of this kind getting uploaded without his consent was definitely the kind of thing that could make him react badly.

“Well, it is _now.”_ Kirito replied, eyes sharp.

It took barely a split second for that to compute, but when it did, Asuna pulled back to soundly thwack him upside the head, making him yelp in surprise. The wounded look he shot her as he rubbed the back of his head didn’t make her ire soften one bit.

“Kirito-kun! They’re _children!”_

“Who know exactly what they’re doing, don’t tell me that they don’t. It’s better this way – look at him, there’s no way he was planning on making this a public video.”

Asuna puffed up her cheeks, frowning down at him. But she had to agree with the logic. Yuuri wouldn’t have felt comfortable sharing a video like this. Maybe with friends and family; he seemed to have gotten a lot more comfortable with social media since he’d traveled to Detroit. But _not_ with the internet at large.

So she sighed, and tugged a chair out from under the dining table and closer to the side where Kirito had set his laptop up. He obligingly made space for her, carefully not mentioning anything about being right, much to her reluctant amusement.

“How in the world did you manage to catch the video right as it got uploaded, though?”

“Oh, Papa asked me to keep an eye on Axel, Lutz and Loop’s social media accounts! And on Nishigori Yuuko’s accounts too. And Phichit Chulanont, and-”

Yui allowed herself to be muffled with the index finger Kirito raised to her face, settling down on his shoulder soon after with a cheerful smile tugging at her lips. Kirito, for his part, awkwardly avoided the dark look Asuna shot at him.

“ _Kirigaya Kazuto-kun._ Are you making our daughter _internet stalk_ our _friend?”_

“Noooo- well. Not exactly!” Kirito yelped, waving his hands defensively.

Yui burst into giggles, hands covering her mouth to muffle them, while Asuna _groaned,_ flopping forward onto the dining table.

This was probably why Yuuri was still holding the both of them at a distance – he knew Kirito well enough to know that not only would Kirito be keeping an eye on him no matter where he was, but also that Kirito had the unfortunate habit of _meddling_ when it came to the people he cared about. The level of subtlety depending entirely on how much Kirito was interested in hiding his efforts.

By the time she looked up again, Kirito had already gone back to watching the video with narrowed eyes. When Asuna tapped him on the hand, he blinked, and shook his head, reaching out to pause the video before turning back to her.

“Does he look any better than he did right after the Grand Prix? He hadn’t seemed very happy after the Nationals, either.”

Kirito frowned at that, he gaze turning distant as he turned the question over in his head. Asuna was willing to wait him out, instead reaching forward to tug the laptop her way so she could re-watch the video for herself.

She still couldn’t get over how _graceful_ Yuuri looked, completely at ease with himself once he glided out into a field of ice. It was like he left all the things that agitated him behind at the entryway, and for the few minutes of his program, transcended into a hyperreal version of himself. She’d seen something similar happen before, when they’d all been a lot younger and she’d watched as Yuuri recreated himself again and again to fight and level up in SAO. And Yuuri’s expression had been so much like _Kirito’s,_ the few times she’d convinced him to go grinding with her, when they’d had some free time on their hands.

She’d continued to see that same kind of single-minded focus in Kirito, well after SAO ended and through the madness of the VR and AR boom that followed right after. If her husband was a swordsman trapped in the body of a modern day Japanese programming-ninja, she supposed Yuuri-kun was his brother-in-arms, trapped in the body of an ice skater, peeking out to take the world head on when he skated, and slumbering the rest of the time.

“He seems… peaceful,” she murmured, finally, once she’d paused the loop.

“Wasn’t Nikiforov’s program about longing, though?” Kirito threw back, tone mild. Not necessarily questioning, but with enough direction in his voice to make her frown, thinking it over.

“…yes. And there’s longing here as well. But it’s not as melancholic as Nikiforov-san’s. Doesn’t it feel like Yuuri’s longing is for something completely different? I’m not able to place the emotion he’s conveying, here, it more complex than I originally thought.”

Kirito hummed thoughtfully, head tilting a bit to the side. Yui tilted her head to the side as well, mimicking her father and forcing Asuna to hide a grin at how adorable the two of them looked.

“Well. Maybe he’s reaching for something that’s closer at hand than whatever Nikiforov is searching for. Like a boss battle where you know the outcome, but you’re trying to streamline your method or playing still to make better time? Or to land a special bonus? He doesn’t look peaceful _or_ melancholic. He looks _hungry_.”

“Hungry? For _katsudon?”_ she teased, unable to help herself and Kirito sputtered, abruptly losing the sharp glint that had appeared in his eyes. She reached out with a single hand to run it up and down his back soothingly soon after, though, and didn’t stop until he subsided, grumbling under his breath.

“I think I understand what you mean,” she said softly, “It’s like that final surge had been, when we were trying to level up towards the end. The necessary EXP climb had been so steep, but we’d done it anyway, because we didn’t have a choice, right.”

“Right. That. That’s exactly what it reminds me of; when we’d all been trying to level grind our way up as far as possible before taking on a floor boss. Yuuri _knows_ what he wants. He’s longing for something he thinks he’ll be able to reach as long as he’s had enough time to level grind his way to the top.”

And he was a self-doubting idiot to be thinking that. Asuna knew how Yuuri’s mind worked – he’d gotten silver at the Grand Prix only by being a fraction of a point above Giacometti, and then, he’d been too lost in his head to get further than fifth at the Nationals. Knowing him, he’d taken that as a sign that he needed to get _better._ Because apparently being one amongst the top figure skaters in the world wasn’t enough by itself.

She couldn’t help but dart another look at Kirito’s way, then trade glances with Yui, who looked about as fondly exasperated as she did. For all that they weren’t actually related by blood, Yuuri and Kirito seemed so uncomfortably _similar,_ sometimes.

“…is it just me or does Nikiforov’s expression look a whole lot more realistic than it had at the Grand Prix?”

Starting in surprise, both Asuna and Yui craned their heads closer to where Kirito had switched over to a completely different video, this one featuring a Russian skater that was nearly as familiar to them by this point as Yuuri was. On account of having become familiar with the sport, anyway.

“…it’s not just you,” Asuna admitted after a long moment of contemplation. “He looks more solemn and lost that he had the last time around.”

“Hmm.”

Asuna immediately turned on her husband, eyes going narrow. She recognized that thoughtful hum. She’d heard it enough times before Kirito took off on some wild goose chase or the other, and invariably ended in something ridiculous that proceeded to show up on the front page news the next day. Without mentioning any of them, thankfully, but that was more because Kirito knew how to keep out of the public eye. He’d always been unnervingly good at avoiding the notice of the media.

“What is it, Papa?” Yui prompted curiously, fluttering forward so she could get between Kirito and the screen of the laptop. The action made Kirito sit back with a groan, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Hmmm.” He hummed again, once he was done pinching at the bridge of his nose, settling his glasses1 back in place.

“ _Papa,”_ Yui all but whined, Asuna chiming in with a pointedly cleared throat. It made Kirito turn back to them, but it did nothing to alleviate the way his left brow was twitching.

“It’s nothing. Just a suspicion, but-”

“That’s what you _always_ say!”

…a chorus? Asuna blinked, and turned to stare at Yui, who stared back at her, just as surprised. Kirito, for his part, just gave a wry laugh, and pushed himself away from the table.

“It’s _nothing,”_ he repeated, grinning when Asuna shot him a dirty look. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“If Papa says so.” Yui grumbled, settling down on the top of Asuna’s head.

Kirito laughed nervously, and slowly backed away from them both, raising a hand to rub at the back of his head.

“Well. If you’ll excuse me, I have a call to make…”

Asuna stared after him, just as suspicious as before, while Yui let out a sound like a tea kettle about to go off. Between one moment and the next, Asuna found her daughter curled up on her lap, now human-sized and with a pout firmly fixed in place on her face. The expression was enough to distract her at least a little from Kirito and his need to be… _mysterious._ So, instead of wasting more energy on being irritable, she just poked Yui on the forehead, grinning when Yui whined, trying to get away from her fingers.

“Your Papa thinks he’s so clever,” she murmured into Yui’s hair, once Yui had settled down again.

“I could check on whom he’s calling?” Yui offered, pulling back to give her an innocent smile.

Asuna snorted, and shook her head.

“No, it’s fine. It’s probably Argo, anyway. You know how your father can be.”

“Ooh. Good point, mama. Should I keep an eye on Argo?”

“…let’s just leave her and your papa to their plotting, I think. He’ll come clean when he has to.”

“ _Un!_ ” Yui nodded cutely, her hair flying everywhere.

Asuna smiled  softly, and turned her attention back to the laptop screen, still covered in a paused image of Victor Nikiforov, mid-spin, his hair all but floating around him, looking about as pretty as an NPC in a HD cutscene in one of the events of a fantasy RPG. The more she looked at him, the more she felt like he somehow looked lonelier than he had, when he’d performed the same program at the Grand Prix. Something about her comment had set off an alarm in Kirito’s head, but she still wasn’t sure _what_ about Victor Nikiforov looking _lonely_ , of all things, had been enough to send Kirito-kun off on one of his ridiculous wild goose chases.

So what if his crazy theories actually turned out to be right, most of the time – they were still ridiculous.

“Is your uncle doing well, then?” Asuna asked, after a long moment.

Kirito’s flights of fancy aside, she was still worried about Yuuri’s unexpected move back to Japan, and his backing out of the Four Continents and Worlds. The Japanese media hadn’t stopped buzzing about it, even long after the fact, everyone having expected that he would stay with the coach who’d taken him to the Grand Prix. Asuna had full faith in Yuuri’s training decisions, he knew himself a lot better than most people would expect, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t worry. Not when this felt more like him deciding to hide away to grind without anyone spotting for him – and that was never the best decision to make.

Kirito probably understood that mindset a lot better than she did, though. For all that he willingly tagged along on raids along with the rest of them, and to explore dungeons with her or whenever Klein dragged him and Agil out along with the rest of Furinkazan for a ‘boys’ night out’, he was still very much the solo player that she’d fallen for, remaining in the background and well out of sight until he swooped in to help when required.

Yui, having shifted so she could sit on Kirito’s abandoned chair, swinging her legs and humming to herself mindlessly, turned to give her a happy little smile.

“Yes! I’ve been following Uncle Yuuri’s friend’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, and judging by Phichit-san’s posts, Yuuri’s been busy recently, but he’s been mentally healthier than he was right after the Grand Prix and the Japanese Nationals! He seems particularly positive in the newest video, even if Nikiforov-san’s free skate is about longing.”

Asuna nodded back, wondering distantly if she should tell Kirito to lay off on the internet stalking.

It wasn’t like they could keep track of little Yuuri in their friendlist anymore, though, or by his stats on their HUDs. And with how stubborn Yuuri had been about not contacting them, it only made sense for them to try and keep track of him in any way possible to make sure he was okay. It’s what Kirito would have done for her, too, what she would have done for him and Lis, and Silica and Sinonon, what Klein would have done for _all_ of them, just to make sure they hadn’t disappeared and managed to get themselves caught up in something dangerous. Kirito moreso than her and the others.

It was okay. Just a little longer, until they got the chance to meet Yuuri again, and could come clean. Whenever that might be.

*

When she heard the familiar buzz of the news suddenly increase in volume till she could hear the actual words, Asuna knew that something _interesting_ had happened. Especially since Kirito had a strange relationship with the news.

By the time she’d wiped her hands off on a dish cloth and had ventured back towards where her husband was staring at the television screen, hands paused above his holographic keyboard, the broadcast that had managed to catch his attention nearly done. She didn’t need more than the very last part of it to know _why_ Kirito had lost interest in his work, though. Those brown eyes and that head of messy black hair were as unmistakable as Kirito’s own to her.

“He did better this time around, did he.” she asked, smiling softly as she leaned against the back of the couch, right behind Kirito’s head.

“Mm. Leading in the short program,” Kirito replied, eyes sharp, even if the rest of his expression was mostly unreadable.

The words had Asuna beaming, though. It too barely any effort to balance herself on the back of the couch, easily flipping right over Kirito’s head to plop into his lap, snickering at the way his breath whooshed out of him. Blank expression lost, Kirito gave her a bug-eyed stare, hands clutching at her reflexively.

“Is he leading only by a bit? Or is it a landslide this time?” she asked coyly, grin not budging from her lips.

Kirito sighed exasperatedly, though he _did_ tuck her head beneath his chin, turning his gaze back towards the screen without any audible complaints. When Asuna turned back to the screen herself, she was just in time to see the last part of Yuuri’s skate, arms wrapped around himself and breathing heavily, face flushed.

“...I would have words with Yuuri’s new coach.” Kirito muttered suddenly, apropos of nothing, sounding like the seiyuu of some older brother figure in a visual novel. The tone made Asuna blink, craning her head up so she could get a glance as his expression. It didn’t help, though, because Kirito’s arms around her were snug enough to leave no wriggling room at all.

“The last time I heard something like that out of you, Suguha had been giggling in a corner with one of Klein’s colleagues from work, hadn’t she.” Asuna said bemused, giving up on her struggles.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kirito threw back at her, bland, but Asuna could hear the smile hiding in his voice with the ease of long-familiarity.

They remained silent for a long while, their gazes focused on the screen until the news broadcast switched over to something else. Asuna just shifted to lean back more comfortably when Kirito twiddled his way through some menus to get the screen to switch over to YouTube instead, searching for any new video content that featured their favorite socially awkward skater. And stifled a giggled into her sleeves when he pointedly ignored the ‘IT’S VICTUURI THEY’RE SO CUTE’ videos that showed up right at the top of the search.

“We should just call him some time,” she mused, when the first few videos had already run their course.

Kirito hummed thoughtfully, his chin still resting on top of her head, and she could feel the vibrations of the sound at her back, pleasantly rumbling in his chest.

“Not just yet,” he replied, and Asuna sighed, her nose scrunching up just the slightest bit.

“The two of you are ridiculous, I hope you know that,” she muttered back, “I would have given in and just _called_ by now.”

Kirito snorted rudely, and dug his chin into her head roughly, making her yelp and elbow him in the gut, smiling triumphantly when he squirmed away from her.

“You’re just as ridiculous, in that case,” Kirito grumbled, one hand pressed against his abdomen protectively, “you could have called him instead of me! Heck, he’d have been less likely to hang up if it had been your voice on the line.”

Asuna opened her mouth, ready with a retort, but it stuck in her throat, unwilling to come out. Because Kirito had a point, really. She could have called instead of him, she’d wanted to speak to Yuuri just as much as he had, over the years. They had certainly been watching enough videos of Yuuri’s performances over the years, either in-competition or otherwise. There were days when their gang of SAO survivors got together that she _missed_ having him around, enough so that both her and Kirito had gotten questioning glances from Sugu and Sinonon.

Missing someone you’d known for barely an year even an entire decade later made no sense. Not when so much had happened in the years since they’d escaped Aincrad. They’d experienced so much, Kirito had hit walls that they’d never have been able to imagine scaling back when they’d still been teens. _Asuna_ had scaled walls that would have seemed insurmountable when she’d been younger. So, no, it didn’t makes sense. But, then, emotions didn’t make much sense, did they. And she hadn’t needed anyone, let alone Kirito, to tell her that calling Yuuri when he wasn’t ready to talk to them would be a bad idea.

Watching the most recent of his skate programs on their television screen, and seeing the ecstatic comments accompanying them, had a helplessly fond smile spreading across her face, a companion to how Kirito had been watching his younger brother’s movements with a sharp glint in his eyes earlier on.

“No, you’re right.” she agreed, and allowed Kirito to gather her close again, her smile widening when he dropped his forehead onto her shoulder petulantly. “It’s good that you waited, Kirito.”

“It’s good that _we_ waited.” Kirito grunted, and she laughed, unable to control the grin on her face when his arms tightened around her.

*

“But aren’t you happy that we waited? It’s going to be so much fun to tease him about this,” she said, much later, watching as yet another short video of Victor Nikiforov throwing his arms around Yuuri with teenage screaming in the background showed up on their screen.

Kirito, in the process of plotting something with Argo over phone, only shot a dirty look her way as a response.

“I didn’t know Uncle Yuuri could go that red,” Yui said bemusedly, her holographic form curled up comfortably beside Asuna on the couch, having shown up somewhere between the one of Yuuri’s program videos and the endless reels of fanmade ‘they belong together’ videos that enterprising fans who’d been present at the first of Yuuri’s seeded events seemed to have been putting together.

“Oh, I’ve seen him go that red before. But never for _this_ reason. I think it’s cute, Kirito, Yuuri-kun’s got a crush!”

Kirito grumbled something under his breath, his eyes narrowing darkly on the screen before something Argo said distracted him from glaring.

“Do you think I should keep an eye on Victor Nikiforov too, mama?” Yui asked, glancing up at Asuna innocently. Asuna might actually have believed it if she couldn’t see that visible twinkle of mischief in her daughter’s eyes. For all that Yui wasn’t her and Kirito’s daughter by blood, some of her mannerisms reminded Asuna of Kirito enough that it _ached._

Kirito probably thought the same of her and Yui all the time, though.

“No, Yui, I think your papa and Argo have that covered, leave Yuuri’s poor coach be,” she declared.

“Oh, I don’t know, more hands on deck might be welcome. What do you say, Yui?”

Asuna rolled her eyes at Kirito, who’d come back to lean over the back of the couch, and was now exchanging bright-eyed grins with Yui.

“I think not, Kirito-kun, Argo’s capable of enough mischief all on her own without adding Yui to the equation.”

“But Asuna, Yui would be able to find information that even Argo couldn’t! And then we’d have _blackmail.”_

Asuna blinked slowly at that, turned a considering gaze to the screen, watching another video start up. That… was actually a good point. Just because little Yuuri with a crush was sweet, it didn’t mean that they should accept Nikiforov-san without _some_ level of wariness.

Then again, that was her inner-Kirito speaking. Even if she had to admit, having something to hold over Nikiforov-san, just to be on the safe side, sounded _great._

Yuuri would probably be horrified with her, wouldn’t he. Well, he’d been about as suspicious of _her,_ when they’d first met. At least until they’d warmed up to each other. The brat. Fair was fair. She somehow felt an odd sense of kinship with Nikiforov, though. Judging by how alike Kirito and Yuuri were, it couldn’t be easy, trying to get through to Yuuri.

Kirito glanced down at her, somehow leery of her even in the middle of his conversation with Yui. Asuna offered up a sweet smile to keep him at bay, and that just resulted in him cringing back uneasily.

“Ah! Papa, mama, it’s almost time for Yuuri’s free skate! We should watch!”

“I feel like I should be keeping Argo on speed dial for this…”

“Don’t be a spoil sport, Kirito-kun. Here, let me switch to the online stream-”

They settled in again, Kirito sitting down again with minimal complaint, while Asuna comfortably curled up into his side, dragging Kirito’s arm over her shoulders and preparing herself to tackle him to the ground if he attempted to call Argo again midway through the broadcast.

Yuuri would probably get a laugh out of this, someday. Even if he _did_ feel tempted to whack his brother around the head when he found out just how mistrustful of Nikiforov-san Kirito had been, without ever having met him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, now you finally know why the triplets' video didn't make it to the net, unlike in canon! *laughs* Kirito can be ridiculous at times. As can Yui. Thank goodness they've got Asuna there to keep an eye on them.
> 
> Also, yes, this interlude speeds a bit further into the future than where we are right now on Yuuri's side of things - that was a conscious decision on my part. Just a hint of what's to come. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this! **Again, as always, please consider leaving comments and kudos!** I'm still getting caught up on my responses, but you'll get them for sure. Also, if you want an immediate response or reaction from me, come find me on tumblr! I'm more active there in terms of how quickly I'll respond.
> 
> If anyone of you is interested in KHR (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!), I'm currently modding a Fan Event scheduled for June with Blue, Seito, Hallen and Aoife over on Tumblr. Check out our blog and prompts here: [khrrarepairweek.tumblr.com](https://khrrarepairweek.tumblr.com/)
> 
> \---
> 
> For anyone interested, the next new AO3 post from me will be: a tumblr prompt from my backlogged works that's an AU crossover between YOI and FMA, fondly called the EdRi 'verse by **[@ayahne](https://ayahne.tumblr.com/)** and myself. Go check out Aya's blog, she's fantastic.
> 
> You can find me **[@adelmortescryche](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com/)** \- come by and say hi! I don't bite.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we return to Yuuri and Victor, and the summer of Eternal Pining turned Relationship Building must be crossed. And what of Yuuri's Free Skate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Holy Crap we crossed 2k kudos~~
> 
> *coughs*
> 
> I mean - Hi everyone! Here's the fifth chapter, edited and up as promised. I know some of you must be in the midst of Finals Week; here's hoping this gives you something fun to look forward to!
> 
> There's a section in this chapter where you can listen to Ludovico Einaudi's _Una Mattina_ and _Nuvole Bianchi_ , along with rough wave sounds, to set the atmosphere! Pretty sure the location where should be obvious, but if not, head to Youtube or Spotify when you reach the words "You don't have to be so careful with me."
> 
>   **Trigger/Content Warnings at the end, as always.**

When Yuuri heads down for an early breakfast before his morning run, the first thing he sees is Victor smiling rather fixedly at his phone. While that shouldn’t have been too alarmingly by itself, Yuuri had been getting pelted with links and emoji-ridden texts from Phichit from the night before. It… didn’t feel like a very auspicious start to the day.

“Do I even _want_ to know?” he muttered, settling himself down on the other side of the table and offered a soft ‘お早う1' in response to his mother’s greeting as she set a bowl of miso soup in front of him.

Victor, already done with his portion of breakfast, quickly rearranged his face into a more relaxed smile. Yuuri might have called him out on the switch, if - _if_ it weren’t honest compared to the more plastic-ky smiles that he’d seen Victor offer up to the media, Before. It didn’t stop Yuuri from raising his brows, though, silently asking Victor to keep going, even as he blew at the soup to cool it enough to guzzle down.

“It appears that you have a fan, Y _uu_ ri.” His idol-coach responded, succeeding in making him choke on his first mouthful of soup.

“…what?” Yuuri wheezed out shakily, once he managed to cough up the last of the soup that had entered his air pipe.

Victor, having dropped his phone in horror, stared blankly at him, one hand still stretched out his way in the attempt to help.

“ _Fan,”_ Yuuri repeated helpfully, clearing his throat one last time to be on the safe side, before gingerly making another attempt to drink his soup. “What?”

“…are you sure you’re-”

“ _Yes,_ Victor, please finish explaining.”

Victor eyed him suspiciously for a long moment, before finally acquiescing with a slow nod.

“He’s still young, most probably in his teens, but he entered the senior circuit during the Nationals. If I’m not mistaken, he-”

“Scored higher than me,” Yuuri cut in dumbly, setting his empty cup back down on the table. “You’re talking about Minami-kun, aren’t you.”

Well, at least that explained the endless stream of notifications. Never say that Phichit didn’t delight in his SNS-inspired misery. It was probably a good thing that Victor had found out early on, else they would have been pounced on my Yuuko and the triplets with the news at the rink. Which would have been a whole lot more awkward than _this_ had been, even if something about what he’d been looking at had left Victor with a piqued look in his eyes. No matter how well he was hiding it.

“Show me?” Yuuri asked, finally, holding a hand out.

Victor turned the phone over without a word, then rested his elbows on the table and his chin on the bed of his steepled hands, watching patiently. Yuuri self-consciously thumbed through Victor’s feed, ignoring anything extraneous, instead focusing on the little link that said Phichit had been the one to send the post over to Victor in the first place. It just figured, didn’t it. Of _course_ Phichit would send the posts to Victor instead, once Yuuri stopped responding to him. Apparently the possibility of Yuuri dying of social embarrassment was enough of a motivator for Phichit to consider texting Victor directly. Regardless of the fact that he hadn’t actually spoken to Victor in person before.

Yuuri had no idea how Phichit managed to breach the senpai-kohai2 barrier so easily. Phichit would probably laugh at the thought of such a barrier being tough to traverse in the first place, Phichit being Phichit, and was more likely to cheerfully fanboy right in someone’s face instead of staying back out of social discomfort. Even if it was one of his best friend’s many personality tics that Yuuri had envied when they were still rooming together in Detroit, in this one instance, he really did wish that Phichit were a bit less socially savvy.

Victor’s brows lowered, just a bit, and Yuuri forced himself to pay attention to the actual matter of the feed, instead of just paying attention to how Victor had received the link. A second more, two, and Yuuri had to desperately control the urge to throw the phone away from him with a shriek.

 

**@MinamiKOfficial wrote:**

_My dream: to skate with my idol again! And show off my #Lohengrin_ σ(≧ε≦ｏ) _Best of luck for the Grand Prix, @katsukiy!! #gp2015_

 

Young Minami-kun was a familiar sight. News issues everywhere had been plastered with his face during the Nationals, after he’d managed to ‘steal’ the gold medal with Yuuri in the same competition. The description had left Yuuri sick to the stomach, once his mind had calmed enough to register what people had been saying about him not making the podium at the Nationals online.  Even now, the teen’s cheerful grin and shining eyes sent an uncomfortable twinge through Yuuri’s chest – so cheerful and bright, still at the start of his career. And with nothing bogging him down, unlike where Yuuri had been at the same stage. But what had caught Yuuri’s attention hadn’t been Minami’s excited face or his exuberant tweet, though that had been a little distracting too. No, it was his costume in the _next_ tweet _._

There were some things that he’d really rather not be reminded of, first thing in the morning. The biggest of which is that time when he’d been feeling _really_ homesick, if it could be called that, and had decided to try skating to a part of _Lohengrin_ for his short program while keeping Kirito and Asuna in mind. The story he’d built up in his head to go with the step sequences he’d decided on with Minako for his program had been embarrassing enough that he’d probably feel safer admitting that _Victor_ was the inspiration for that skate. Anything to avoid Asuna-san ever finding out that she’d inspired his take on the Knight of the Holy Grail, Lohengrin3.

Actually, make that, _anything_ to avoid Kirito ever finding out that he’d played the role of the ‘unjustly accused woman’ in Yuuri’s head. Kirito-nii would never let him live it down. _Never._ Asuna-san might just get a laugh about it, admittedly, but Yuuri would rather not become the victim of fratricide, thanks.

The quiet sound of a throat being cleared had Yuuri glancing back at Victor warily, not sure how he was supposed to react out loud. Victor, though, had managed to lose the fixed stare that he’d been directly Yuuri’s way somewhere during Yuuri’s mini-breakdown over seeing a younger skater deciding to emulate one of his most embarrassing skate programs. Instead, he just looked caught between amusement and disapproval. It’s enough to make Yuuri slowly set the phone back down on the table, with the screen pointedly turned face-down so he didn’t have to see that costume again.

“Don’t you think you should be responding to him, Yuuri? It’s going to have to be in a tweet, since I don’t think we’ll get the chance to see him in person any time soon, not when we’re busy training and _he’s_ going to be busy as well.”

The words made Yuuri blink bemusedly, because the undercurrent of ‘more’s the pity’ _really_ wasn’t what he’d been expecting when Victor had brought the topic up. He gave an awkward laugh, though, and made to push the phone back Victor’s way. Because he wasn’t ready to address anything to do with his _Lohengrin._ Even if Minami-kun had directly addressed him. No way.

Victor’s disapproval abruptly overpowered his fond amusement. Enough so that Yuuri stiffened where he sat, words drying up in his throat.

“A thank you message isn’t too hard, is it? He seems to look up to you.” _And you’d be a jerk if you ignored the kid,_ was what he didn’t say. He’s tone made it uncomfortably obvious that he really wanted to, though.

Yuuri winced, and shoved himself up off of his cushion and to his feet, empty bowl in hand.

“Later, maybe. We need to get started on our run, come on.”

“Yuuri!”

Victor’s incredulous yelp followed Yuuri to the kitchen, where he beat a hasty retreat so he could deposit his bowl to be cleaned later. He countered his mother’s mild glance by making a face, apparently radiating enough discomfort that she just laughed at him, reaching out to rub his shoulder teasingly when he headed back out with a muttered ‘行ってきます4'.

 “Go and safely return. And be kinder to Vicchan, will you?” she said, and Yuuri shot her an incredulous look over his shoulder.

“‘Vicchan’ should be kinder to _me,”_ he shot back petulantly, making her laugh again.

Victor had already headed out to the entrance by the time Yuuri reached the dining hall again. And when he reached the _genkan,_ Victor was waiting for him outside, standing by his bicycle with both their dogs, all of them waiting impatiently for Yuuri to get out.

But even as Yuuri switched his slippers out for running shoes, he suspected that this wouldn’t be the end of the conversation. Victor had let it go too easily, and if there was anything that Yuuri had learnt in the past few weeks, Victor _never_ let things go easily. He smiled a lot more than Yuuri did, and was more charming too, but he was just as stubborn. If sweeter about it.

It’s enough to make Yuuri want to bang his head against a wall somewhere. Takeshi had just laughed at him, when he’d brought it up, on one of the nights when he’d run away to hide under the Nishigori household’s roof following Victor’s too-eager questions about what Yuuri wanted to do for his free skate.

“This is what you deserve, you brat. He’s just as bad as you are.” Takeshi had said, and Yuuri had spent the rest of the night in a snit. If also feeling uncomfortably giddy at the same time.

“Yuuri, are you ready?” Victor called out, and Yuuri went, forcibly telling his brain to shut up.

He’d deal with the fallout of the Minami tweet when it came. In the meantime, exercise would probably help. Probably. Maybe he could tire Victor out enough that the older man had no energy to think about Yuuri’s ‘fans’.

*

The run to the rink is refreshing, even if Victor was alarmingly quiet during the entire stretch, as compared to usual. Makkachin and Vicchan were a good distraction from wondering what the heck was going on inside Victor’s head, but even they weren’t enough to distract Yuuri completely. Not when it was impossible to miss the tiny little glances that Victor kept shooting his way.

They warmed up easily and amicably enough, Victor joining him without any complaints after Yuuri shot a particularly dirty look his way, but Yuuri somehow managed to fudge his landing on a triple axel early on and that set the precedent for the rest of the day.

Come noon, Yuuri was in enough pain and irritable enough that he regretted not having the option to head out and slaughter a few mobs till he regained his peace of mind. And _that_ murderous urge had him breaking early, waving off the surprised look Victor shot his way when he made for the boards. It was never a good idea for him to keep going when he started thinking he’d rather be killing things than training. Especially since that line of thought always seemed to edge over into him thinking that level grinding had been _easier_ when he could track the leveling of his stats by points and the number of skeletons or kobolds he’d killed.

He was already sitting on a bench and getting his skates off by the time Victor followed him out, brows creased in concern.

“I’m fine,” Yuuri bit out before Victor could ask. “I think I need to eat something. Or- I don’t know. I shouldn’t be on the ice right now.”

One good thing that had come of his monologue about his issues was that, Victor? Was actually willing to take him at face value about his limits, now. He’d still been willing to listen, before, but not for the same reasons. For all that Yuuri still found it difficult to understand why Victor did or said the things he did, he could see the difference in reaction clear as day in this one aspect. Earlier, Victor let him take breaks or have rest days because he decided that Yuuri wasn’t in the mood to skate, or just needed a break. Because, apparently, that was what Victor needed too, sometimes.

Now? His general reaction to Yuuri saying that he needed to stop for a moment was ‘let’s break, Yuuri needs space to breathe.’

…Yuuri could probably compose sonnets based on just how amazing that bit of understanding felt. He would do it. Even if his grasp of literature and creativity were nowhere near good enough for complex poetry. He would do it, because Victor and his patience were _worth it._

“Lunch, then?” Victor offered, grin pasted in place and arms akimbo.

Makkachin wandered in from where she’d been keeping Yuuko company up front, closely followed by Vicchan, bumbling up to drop her chin onto Yuuri’s knee. Between the cheery don’t-get-yourself-down expression on Victor’s face, Makka’s great heavy head and Vicchan flopping onto the one skate-less foot he still had on the ground, Yuuri couldn’t stop the splutter of laughter that escaped him, visions of forests and beast mobs waiting to be mowed down fading from his mind’s eye, along with that desperate ticking urge in his veins. Oh, the urge was still there, it never really faded on the more frustrating grinding days like this one, but at least the _desperation_ wasn’t.

“Yes, please. Lunch is a good idea.” Yuuri grinned up at him while patting Makkachin’s head comfortingly, tugging teasingly at her ears and getting a growly noise that sounded like so much laughter in response.  Vicchan’s protesting whine had him bending over his knee and Makka’s head to ruffle his tiny-big pup’s fur too, almost slipping right off the bench with a choked off yelp when Makkachin playfully nudged her head upwards, snuffling at his throat and collarbones.

Victor got a hand out to steady him, though. Yuuri opened his mouth to offer his thanks, except the words somehow got lost on their way to his voice box when he noticed the way Victor’s eyes were all but glowing down at him, filled with soft humor. Well, sure, as long as Victor got a laugh out of his predicament, right. That was why he wasn’t saying anything, he was just too piqued to speak when Victor was laughing at him. It had nothing to do with how open Victor’s face looked when his eyes were filled with gentle laughter.

It also had nothing to do with how close Victor face was to his.

“Should we go see what Yuuko has for us, then?” he asked, his smile right up in Yuuri’s face, and Yuuri could only nod helplessly in response.

 

Yuuko was working on her Link when they stopped by the front desk. Not for much longer, she hurriedly lifted a hand up to the device hooked over her right ear and tugged it off the moment she caught sight of them. Solely because of him, Yuuri suspected – his family wasn’t big on being Linked In or any such thing, but he knew Yuuko, Takeshi and the triplets were all avid users of AR and interfacing devices. If only because of the convenience.

…to be honest, it’s a relief that he hadn’t seen Victor use any such tech the entire time he’d been Hasetsu. He’d seen Yuri playing a game on one of them while _he’d_ been in Hasetsu - not a brand that Yuuri recognized but he _did_ know what they looked like. But Victor had kept them busy enough that there had been no real time for either of them to focus on anything outside of cardio, skating and melting into a puddle beside the dinner tables by nightfall.

Yuuko shot an awkward smile his way before quickly hopping up to distract Victor with talk of food, and what Yuuri’s mom had sent up for them.

Yuuri twitched in place for a moment, then made himself walk over to help with the lunch boxes.

It wasn’t like he had anything against the Links, or any of the other AR technology that had flooded the market in the years since SAO had been cleared. While there hadn’t been any talk of VR early on, the quiet lasted only until the Amuspheres came out, since VR technology had apparently been too lucrative a prospect for anyone to stay away from. The only thing more lucrative than that had been AR – especially since AR was applicable to the real world in ways games and gaming simply… weren’t. Yuuri had been forced to accept that when judges and panels began making use of AR technology to capture speed and motion in sports. Heck, he knew other athletes and coaches who made use of similar devices to track _themselves_ through practice. Celestino had never been interested, he claimed that he was more ‘analog’, to Phichit’s eternal disgust, but Yuuri had been _relieved._

Just because he didn’t have anything against it didn’t mean that he wanted anything to do with the tech. Especially not when he’d heard rumors about studies being made to further sync augmented reality in with actual reality – how, he didn’t even want to know. Yuuri just wanted to make sure he could separate what was real from what _wasn’t._

…Kirito would probably have a good laugh about that, if he ever found out. He’d always been interested in the technical aspects of what went into VR, from what Yuuri remembered. Much to Asuna-san’s amusement. And _Argo’s._

 “Eat outside, Yuuri?” Victor asked him, wide, heart-shaped smile in place, and Yuuri could hear his heart beat thud in his ears.

“Yes. That-that would be good,” he replied, and ignored Yuuko’s giggling in the background.

It was probably for the best that he avoided AR Links, honestly. Else he would’ve been tempted to log into some hack and slash online game just to relieve stress and control his mind’s baser impulses left over from SAO – the _easy_ way out. And not one that Yuuri ever wanted to give into again.

He followed Victor and the dogs out, but not without offering Yuuko a small nod. Just so she knew that he didn’t mind the sight of the Link. He never did. The relieved grin she shot back at him told him she’d received the message.

*

“It’s not a problem with the music, so, was it something else?”

Yuuri started in place, fumbling and almost dropping the lid of his bento. He managed to keep a hold of it though, and shot an exasperated look Victor’s way. Victor shrugged back at him, unrepentant grin set in place. Apparently, even if he’d managed to ignore all of the other man’s Minami and other fan-related stingers through lunch, this was a question that Victor was insistent on having answered.

Which… was annoying. Especially since they’d discussed it before, back when the music had first come in, and Yuuri was still as blank now as he’d been back then.

He finally seemed to be developing some level of proficiency with his short program, enough so that Victor was vocally delighted whenever he ran through it in practice, but even with Ketty’s newly composed music, Yuuri found that he was having more bad days than good. The good days were _really_ good, admittedly, but those were the days when he practiced for his short program. The days when he tried to experiment freely with his dance elements, trying to come up with something that fit the nascent vision that was tugging at the corners of his mind and his heartstrings, both.

Victor had been supportive through it all, not asking him too many questions or pushing him too hard, but it had been easy for Yuuri to tell that that had been a _conscious_ decision. A conscious decision to give him space, while Victor wound himself up, questions and thoughts hammering inside his head. Recognizing that had Yuuri caught between being grateful for the consideration from his idol and just feeling _worse._ Because, the more time he spent with Victor, the more it became increasingly obvious that whatever else they had building between them, Yuuri couldn’t help but feel bad for ignoring his _friend’s_ feelings.

Because, Victor? Was his friend, now. _Truly_ his friend, not just his coach, and clearly cared more than Yuuri could believe, sometimes. For more reasons than just some kind of play at winding Yuuri up. He knew that, he did, he’d seen it right from the beginning, but it had taken until relatively recently to actually _register_ that distinction in his head. To believe it.

Victor kept a careful gaze on him, waiting for an answer, and when Yuuri glanced away uncomfortably, he clearly heard Victor sigh.

“…is it just a bad day, then? Yuuri?”

Yuuri bit his lip, and made himself nod.

He heard Victor shuffling in place, and the next thing he knew, the other man was kneeling on the ground before him, hands on Yuuri’s knees and peering up at him with a serious look in his eyes. That emotion was about the only thing that stopped Yuuri from combusting on the spot, because Victor looked uncomfortably like something out of one of his teenage mind’s R rated dreams for a second there.

“Do you want to take a break today? Maybe go for a walk? We could go to a park or something. Maybe you could show me around the town.”

Show him around the town? Hasetsu was _tiny,_ and with Victor’s curiosity and need to move, he’d probably managed to see all there was worth seeing in Hasetsu within the first few weeks of his arrival. The offer seemed patronizing enough that Yuuri was tempted to shove Victor’s hands away, and just get up and jog back to Ice Castle, but something about the way Victor kept peering up at him, patient and still, made him force himself to turn the question over a little more seriously.

 _Or something,_ Victor had said. Go to a park _or something._

…Yuuri’s heart _ached._

“I want to keep trying today, at least for a little while longer,” he replied, voice soft, and caught Victor’s hands before the older man could attempt to pull them away. “But I like the suggestion to relax afterwards. A lot.”

Victor’s entire face lit up with relief. It was enough to make Yuuri smile back reflexively, feeling like a heel.

*

Returning to the rink after their meal proved to be a _little_ more fruitful. In that Yuuri stopped making as many mistakes and wiping out as often as he’d been, earlier in the day. Victor could clearly tell, judging by his laughter when Yuuri threw himself into a triple axel right out of an experimental step sequence, just because he could.

He hadn’t made anywhere near enough headway on his quad loop, but Yuuri was willing to let it go for the day. His free skate still felt uncomfortably far out of his reach, enough so that his frustration with the lack of mental connect made him visibly irate while putting aside his skates and running through his cool down stretches, winding up for the day. Victor oddly didn’t offer up any wise cracks through the process, silently running through his own stretches at Yuuri’s side.

Before he could actually ask, feeling the slightest bit awkward in spite of that burn of frustration in his gut, Victor abruptly straightened, and shot off towards the front desk. Yuuri stared after him, confused, but the need to properly relax his muscles outweighed his need to know what Victor was up to, so he let it go, instead concentrating on himself. His legs and flanks felt like one big bruise, but he didn’t need the pain to tell him that he’d been having a worse day than he’d had in a _really_ long time.

The urge to go hack at some monsters until he felt better had died somewhere in the middle of Victor bouncing ideas at him for the start of his program. None had actually felt like the perfect fit, but that hadn’t stopped Yuuri from actually attempting Victor’s suggestions. For all that his coach liked to claim that Yuuri was the better dancer, Yuuri would give it in writing that Victor was the better between them at actually putting step sequences and jumps together to build a good program. He was simply the better _choreographer_ ; maybe especially so when he could trust that Yuuri would be able to follow through on whatever suggestions he came up with. It wasn’t like Yuuri hadn’t already known that Victor preferred to choreograph his own routines, especially in his later years, but hearing about it through the grapevine was completely different from actually watching Victor muttering to himself over a notebook, scribbling away in it before abruptly shoving his stationary away in favor of trying out whatever he’d been imagining, his movements as graceful as ever, both on the ice and off it.

When Victor got back, Yuuri was just about done. His reappearance with icepacks in hand made Yuuri gawp rather unattractively, if he did say so himself, but Victor simply laughed, insisting that Yuuri needed to ice his bruises. It not a suggestion that Yuuri appreciated, especially since it could wait until they got back home – but that reminded him of Victor’s suggestion of strolling around Hasetsu for a while, maybe just spending some time together before returning to the onsen to soak their aching muscles a bit before eating and retiring for the night.

He stared at the icepack that Victor playfully wriggled in his face, and settled back down on the benches with a sigh. It earned him a wide grin before Victor crowded closer, patiently asking him where it hurt worst, and whether or not they should relocate to the locker rooms so Yuuri could actually shower first before checking which bruises were bad enough to require icing.

When Yuuri glanced up, in the middle of waving his hands and insisting that he’d definitely rather keep his clothes _on,_ thanks, he caught sight of Yuuko hovering by the stairs, looking caught between a smiling fondly and trying really hard not to laugh.

He’s tempted to do something about that, because he shouldn’t be _encouraging_ her and Takeshi, but Victor dragged him off towards the locker room before he could attempt doing anything of the sort.

 

Later, when they’re finally out of the rink and Yuuri can actually convince himself to look Victor in the face again – because having his clothes ripped off of him by Victor was something he hadn’t seen coming, at least not in these specific circumstances, and he was _going to stop thinking about that now 5 – _he abruptly noticed they were slowly strolling their way back to the onsen. Victor hadn’t brought up his suggestions to go on a walk again, and that… was just criminal, wasn’t it.

Maybe he simply forgot about. But something told Yuuri that he’d just let it pass, assuming that Yuuri _wasn’t interested._ It wasn’t like Victor looked _sad_ , if anything he looked happier than ever, cheerfully babbling away at their dogs while wheeling his bike beside him, but Yuuri found himself drawing to a stop, staring at the ground while biting at his lip when Victor slowed down as well.

“Yuuri?” Victor asked, sounding politely confused, and somehow still so _patient,_ and Yuuri was tempted to scream at him. And maybe just pull madly at his hair, because the pain would clear Yuuri’s head like nothing else.

Instead, he reached out, tentatively wrapping his fingers around Victor’s elbow, and ignored the way Victor’s breath appeared to catch in his chest.

“Let’s… go to the beach, okay? It’s not too dark yet, and-”

Victor looked surprised enough that Yuuri actually found himself groaning in actual exasperation, taking a step closer so he could stare Victor right in the face.

“The _beach,_ Victor. You said you wanted to go for a walk?”

Yuuri was close enough that he could actually see when the words registered – the look in Victor’s eyes went from surprised to shocked, and then, finally, ecstatic.

*

 “You don’t have to be so careful with me, y’know,” he muttered, when they’d found a place to settle down.

For all that there was still light out, the tide had already started to draw back, and the water was much rougher than it would have been in the morning. The sound of the waves was loud, a dull roar, but they were both used to living by the water. It wasn’t alarming in the least. All it meant was they had a bit more privacy than they might have had otherwise, and Yuuri wasn’t going to begrudge that.

To his credit, Victor didn’t even attempt to act clueless. Instead, he gave a heavy sigh, and leant back on his hands. Yuuri just kept his gaze focused on the dogs, watching as they ran along the edge of the water, barking and yapping at each other excitedly.

“We should have brought a ball with us.”

Yuuri blinked, and glanced over at Victor, eyes going narrow in his head. Victor just kept on smiling that inane smile of his, though. As if he weren’t completely ignoring what Yuuri had just said- Yuuri took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and stayed silent. He’d already said his piece. And Victor had been trying his best to meet Yuuri halfway ever since Yuuri had told him about the blackouts and anxiety attacks. It fell on Yuuri to at least _try_ to offer a similar level of patience, right? From the wry look Victor shot at him, he hadn’t been nearly as subtle at hiding his reaction as he thought he’d been.

Or maybe that was just Victor reading him more easily. It wasn’t like Yuuri would ever be able to understand what exactly was going on inside Victor’s head, but he could tell that he had better chances of guessing now than he would have before, back when Victor had first shown up. It only made sense to assume that Victor was the same6.

“Maybe we should have. They’d have had something to play with, if we had,” Yuuri offered, just a bit awkwardly. He stiffened when it earned him a light nudge from Victor’s shoulder, then snorted, amused in spite of himself.

He dragged his legs up so he could press his mouth and chin into his knees, continuing to peer over them at Makkachin and Vicchan. Vicchan had managed to slip and plop into the water, but Makkachin had been kind enough to nudge him back to his feet with her nose, herding him back onto land. The sight made him want to laugh - continued exposure to Makkachin over the past few months had already told Yuuri that Makka was just as rambunctious as Vicchan could be on a good day. She was just better at looking innocent and getting away with it. It might just have been the tide, though. Even their overgrown pups could tell that it was safer to stay higher up on the beach.

Victor shifted in place, and Yuuri found himself sighing again, softer than before, before shifting a little closer to the other man before he could think twice about it. Victor stiffened immediately, and Yuuri had a split second to wonder if he’d read Victor wrong before Victor relaxed again, straightening up and shifting a little closer as well.

They stayed in companionable silence after that, shoulders pressed up against each other and bodies a long line of warmth against the chill of the breeze blowing in from the ocean.

By the time Makkachin and Vicchan got tired of exploring and chasing each other over the wet sand, returning with twin judgmental stares apiece, Yuuri found that the frustration over the less than productive day that had been buzzing in his veins had finally settled into something calmer. He wasn’t sure if it was the smell of salt in the air, the cool breeze, the sound of the waves or simply Victor’s quiet, accepting company beside him, but for the first time since he’d woken to Phichit squealing about his ‘cute little fan’, he actually felt like he could breathe again without self-directed dissatisfaction clouding his brain.

“You really don’t like being pushed, do you.”

For all that Victor’s words escaped in barely a whispered rush, they still seemed alarmingly loud, especially after the amount of time they’d spent in the quiet. But that didn’t stop Yuuri from bobbing his head against his knees in an abbreviated nod.

For one, unnervingly long heartbeat, Yuuri could feel Victor press closer along his side, as though he longed to throw an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and pull him closer. And then the beat was done, and Victor still remained where he’d been, keeping his limbs to himself, but not moving away either. Yuuri wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed by the lack of an arm slung around his neck.

“I’ve never liked that, no,” is what he finds himself saying instead. “It’s not just skating. It’s also been… other things…”

“Past lovers?” Victor asked him, coy. Yuuri sputtered out a laugh, because of _course_ Victor Nikiforov’s first take away from a statement like that would be pushy lovers. His tone was a study in nonchalance, meaning it could be perfectly serious or the worst kind of joke.

He was almost tempted to respond; for all that he hadn’t had time while studying in Detroit, too busy grinding and skating and managing online courses and the few extra-credit classes that he’d been allowed to take at Wayne State, that didn’t mean that he hadn’t had _time._ And with a friend like Phichit, and the parties that Phichit had seen fit to drag him into… Yuuri definitely had an answer to Victor’s question. An answer in the positive, even – Phichit had entire folders of blackmail material based on Yuuri’s pushy hook-ups reappearing and asking for another chance. Yuuri had never managed to figure out if the blackmail was meant for his hook-ups or for _him._

Victor’s brows _waggled,_ and Yuuri gave in to the urge to laugh. If it sounded a bit breathless, well, he couldn’t be blamed for it, now could he.

To think that any mention of old lovers had made Yuuri _choke,_ that first month after Victor had showed up. In his defense, being threatened with stories of Victor’s old flames after Victor had spent hours flirting like a fiend beforehand really hadn’t been Yuuri’s idea of a good time, back then. Too embarrassing. Especially when a sweet smile from the other man could have laid him out flat a lot faster than any salacious trips down memory lane.

Once they’d both managed to get their laughter under control, Victor still looking insufferably pleased with himself, Yuuri turned his head just enough so that he could stare straight at Victor without actually letting go of his knees. Victor stared back at him, smile firmly stuck in place, and Yuuri couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he reached a hand out to poke at it. Just for the heck of it. Would it make Victor jerk in place? Would it surprise him? Would he squeak?

He allowed himself to imagine that, imagine himself boldly reaching out to run out to test his fingers against the shape of Victor’s smile, and then let the image drift away.

“I’ve never liked being pushed past my comfort zone,” Yuuri repeated, voice soft and firm at once. “No matter who’s doing the pushing. I don’t make friends easily, but the few I’ve made always managed to figure out when to let things go. There was this friend, when I lived in Detroit, she tried to hug me when I didn’t want her to get close, and it felt like she was comforting herself by acting like she was comforting me-”

Victor made a pained sound, his beautiful face scrunching up in something that wasn’t quite distaste, and Yuuri found himself smiling back faintly. Because it felt like Victor had understood what Yuuri had _wanted_ understood from his story.

“Have I… Do I…?” Victor asked, suddenly, and Yuuri blinked, smile bleeding away immediately.

“No,” he responded immediately, lifting his head up from his knees, “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

“It’s not like I know what you want me to be to you, Yuuri,” Victor shot back, voice low. His words felt like they should have been accompanied with vehemence, or pain, an intense look boring into Yuuri’s personal space or a pained glance aside, unwilling to meet his gaze. Of course, Victor was none of these things, instead staying exactly where he’d been through their trip out to the beach, eyes focused steadily on Yuuri’s own. His voice was nothing but plain and honest, much like his words when he continued. “I came here, not quite sure what to expect, aside from knowing that I wanted to see you, but I had to convince you to take me as your coach even when I thought that’s what you wanted, at the very least. Is that what you want from me? Whom you want me to be?”

It’s like Yuuri could feel an invisible hand, squeezing around his heart in his chest like a vice. Victor didn’t say it, he didn’t put it in actual words, but Yuuri didn’t actually need him to say them out loud.

_Is that what you want from me?_

_Is that_ all _you want from me?_

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous – it was like Victor had suddenly taken a step back because a yawning hole had opened up between them. Hadn’t Yuuri already _told_ Victor how important he was to him? Yuuri found himself scrambling to turn around, reaching out to catch Victor’s hands in his own. Much to his bemusement, as he glanced between his captive hands and Yuuri’s face, face still scrunched up in that odd mix of hesitation and resolve.

“All I want from you,” Yuuri said fiercely, “Is for you to be _you.”_

His words hit Victor with all the force of a high leveled mace to the chest. Yuuri could almost see the range of impact, he’d seen Agil-san and Lis slam their weapons into enough monsters to know exactly what that would have looked like. Well, sure, without the RL blood and viscera and shattered rib cages to go with it, but that slackened jaw and Victor’s round eyes definitely would have been at home on the face of anyone Kirito-nii’s mace wielding friends had taken by surprise.

Why the heck Victor would expect Yuuri to want him to be anything else other than himself, Yuuri couldn’t understand. Even if remembering any of his urges to form a stable party with Victor made him want to scrub his brain out with bleach, it had to count for _something,_ right. Yuuri knew exactly what he wanted in his party, and that was Victor, and everything that went into making him Victor. Nothing more and nothing less – he was just right as he was. And while Yuuri had probably been tempted to propose being in a party together while drunk and carried away by Victor’s beautiful face and all his old memories of dreaming of skating on the same ice as Victor someday, the months they’d spent together since Victor had shown up in Hasetsu had only told him that his drunken self had gotten things right.

Even if he hadn’t had all the facts. The Victor he’d gotten to know as his coach and as the man who woke up at the crack of dawn like a maniac, poking at him until he woke up, the man who threw himself into Yuuri’s bed if only to ask about the J-Rock and K-Pop songs some of his fans had suggested he should try out, the one who teased him about his inability to eat red meat while cheerfully packing away calories that _never-fucking-showed on his frame_ , the menace of a man with his heart shaped smiles and lonely eyes and his endless patience – _that_ was whom Yuuri really wanted on his party. The Russian Living Legend was someone Yuuri had been chasing for years, through SAO and beyond; that man was someone Yuuri would never stop chasing he supposed. That Victor was someone as ingrained in Yuuri’s skeletal structure as what SAO had taught him, in the two years he’d been locked in the Death Game. But the man… Victor the man had endeared himself to Yuuri, enough so that Yuuri found it criminal that he’d never known this Victor before.

“That’s all I want.” Yuuri said, eyes sharp, and he tightened his grip around Victor’s hands when it seemed like they would slip out of his grasp.

“Yuuri…” Victor whispered, and in that moment, it was like the armored wall in his eyes had fractured, and Yuuri could peer past the shattered façade through to the softer, vulnerable flesh within. The expression made something inside Yuuri’s chest twist, hard, and it was all he could do to not let go of Victor’s hands and enfold him in a hug instead.

Yuuri had been there, before. Pushed past the brink by words said by someone else. He’d never wanted people to get close to him, back then, even if the ‘people’ had been just Kirito-nii and Asuna, and he suspected Victor would shy away from any more contact than Yuuri’s fingers holding onto his hands like a vice, now. So he just held on, unable to offer anything else, at least until Victor had managed to take a shuddering breath, eyes pinching shut for a long moment, before his eyes blinked open again, his defenses shored once more.

“If that’s really what you want-”

“It is,” Yuuri cut in, firm, and Victor _laughed,_ the sound so much lighter than anything Yuuri had heard him make till date.

“If it _is,_ then what can I possibly do but say yes.”

Yuuri stared, captivated by the shine in Victor’s eyes. It took him a few more seconds to register that he’d been holding onto Victor’s hands and staring wordlessly into his eyes for a little too long for it to be kosher, though, and he abruptly let go with a yelp.

Victor didn’t let him get too far, though, instead catching him by the wrist before Yuuri could truly get away. When Yuuri looked back down, feeling his face burn in an uncomfortably familiar way, Victor was kind enough to ignore how unhealthily red Yuuri _knew_ his face must have been, instead tugging gently at the wrist he held in his fingers.

“Help me up, Y _uu_ ri,” he said, smiling sweetly, and Yuuri could only do exactly as Victor asked, heart too full and lodged too firmly in his throat to actually speak.

Makkachin and Vicchan both snuffled at their knees and toes, looking just as unimpressed as they’d been when they’d returned, earlier on, but they doggedly followed after him and Victor when they headed back to the water’s edge, barely skirting it as they went their way.

If their hands happened to be brushing close to one another while they walked, well, it wasn’t like either of their dogs would be interested in carrying any tales, now would they.

*

“Лучик7! Yura’s on the phone for you!”

Yuuri looked up from where he’d been poring over his notes, surprised. Victor shrugged, still leaning against the doorjamb of Yuuri’s room, and smiling oddly when Yuuri directed a suspicious frown his way.

Yuuri didn’t trust the set of that smile at all, but he stretched an arm out anyway, shaking his hand pointedly so Victor could drop the phone into it. The suspicion burning in him only got worse when Victor made no attempt to sneak past him to sit on his bed and wait – Victor _always_ stuck around when Yuri was on the line. Or if Yuuri spoke to Celestino. The latter moreso because he seemed to have decided that trading tips with Yuuri’s old coach was something he had to do, even if it made zero sense to Yuuri. Victor’s take on coaching was completely different from Celestino’s. That aside, Victor always stayed back when Yuri was involved, if only to get a laugh. Or rile the younger skater up further.

And so, he warily brought the phone up to his ear. Because Victor was up to Something, and Yuuri wasn’t sure if he wanted to spring the trap or not.

“Yurio?”

“How many times do I have to tell you to _not call me that,”_ Yuri snarled in response, and Yuuri coughed out a laugh in spite of himself. Typical Yurio.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied cheerfully, ignoring the hissed curses that spilled down the phone line. “But, Victor said you wanted to speak with me?”

Yuri quickly brought himself back under control, but not without growling for another few minutes in ear-searing language.

“What the fuck, Katsudon, the old man said that you still haven’t finalized you’re free skate?!”

Ah. And now Victor’s shady expression and his quick retreat made a whole lot more sense. Yuuri wasn’t sure if he should be applauding the other man’s sneaky tactics or plotting revenge of some sort.

“I have time. It’s still July8.” Yuuri said, mild, and was rewarded with a horrible sound over the phone, something caught between indignation and actual, frustrated fury.

“Don’t be ridiculous, pig, the Grand Prix placements are due to be announced any day now! You should be practicing your free skate seriously, not still be in the process of- of _producing_ it!”

Oh Yurio. Yuuri was suddenly overcome with a bemused sense of affection. For all that Yuri sounded as abrasive as ever, Yuuri didn’t even have to try hard to hear the thread of dismay in his voice. It was still hard for him to accept that Yuri might have any reason to look up to him or actually appreciate him – yes, even after visible proof of respect, he never claimed his brain made any actual sense – but this kind of proof was a little hard to ignore. Especially when Victor had gone _out of his way_ to ensure that Yuri would get the chance to talk to him about this.

“Is it the jumps?” Yurio was asking, sounding long suffering. “I know you’re training the loop, but you’ve at least got the quad toe and the quad sal down. And you know what you’re doing with dance, this doesn’t make any _sense._ Is it the old man? Is he distracting you too much?”

 _He better not be distracting you too much,_ that last bit tone’s seemed to say. Yuuri was hard-pressed not to laugh over the line. It wouldn’t win him any points with Yuri, at any rate. At least that wasn’t the actual reason – Yuuri didn’t think he’d be able to live it down if his coach were distracting him from producing his own free program. He didn’t think _Victor_ would be able to live it down.

“That isn’t the reason, no. And it isn’t the jumps either. Victor’s been helping me with those, and he’s been giving me ideas for the spins and the step sequences we could add. Minako-sensei’s been giving me ideas too, but-”

“But what?! That should be enough, what more do you want?!”

Yuuri sighed through the ire choking the phone line, and carefully settled himself down on the edge of his bed, tempted to just collapse into the mattress and sleep for the night. He wasn’t sure how to go about explaining the problem, especially not when _Yurio_ had approached him for help, earlier on.

The growl that reverberated down the phone line had him laughing a little helplessly, before diving right in to the problem.

“I can’t seem to _connect,_ is the thing.”

There was a long silence over the line. Yuuri waited patiently, recognizing the signs of an outburst even before it happened.

“…excuse me?” Yurio spat, tone incensed.

“Exactly what I said. Somehow, my short program was easier to settle into, once I actually started focusing on it? And even if it’s not all that easy to imagine yet, I already have the program. All I need to do is figure out how to _feel_ it, and-”

“Okay, stop, _enough_ , заткнись свинья9! I don’t want to know hear about how you’re inspired to feel _anything_ when the old man’s involved!”

Yuuri choked a bit on a laugh at that statement, face going warm, not sure if he should deny it or play the words up just to tease Yurio a little further. But no, Yurio had actually sounded _concerned –_ it wouldn’t be nice to make fun of him that way.

He wasn’t that much like his brother, no matter what Silica and Klein-san had implied, back in the game.

“All I need to do is feel it,” he barged ahead, his tone stopping Yurio from interrupting, “while not only do I need to feel my free skate, but I also need to build a choreography that comes together the way I want it to, to say what I’m feeling. I have the music, but everything I’ve tried just… doesn’t seem right. Not yet.”

“But building a choreo from scratch is _child’s play_ for you and Victor! And don’t deny it, Katsudon, I saw the two of you skating together during our breaks while I was in Hasetsu. You have _fun_ coming up with step sequences.”

Yuuri heaved in a breath, unable to deny that. It felt like so long ago, since those earlier days when he’d still been getting comfortable with Victor and Yurio both. He hadn’t been sure about wanting Yurio on his party or friends list then, not like he was now, and it had been as easy as breathing to give into Victor goading him to create tiny programs set to music from his iPhone. Yurio had clung to the boards, heaving for breath, and had called him a monster, all while Yuuri found himself dancing in a way he hadn’t since his earlier days on the ice, just playing with choreographies with Yuuko for fun.

“I do,” he admitted slowly, feeling a little foolish while doing so. “But having fun isn’t enough, is it.”

Yurio was silent for a long moment, enough so that Yuuri thought he’d cut the line, when he abruptly dragged in a loud, put-upon breath.

“Okay. _Okay._ Lay it on me, tell me what stupid, soft theme you’re going with. Maybe I can help.”

The offer was unexpected. Yuuri actually sputtered a little, and Yurio snarled something in self-defense, but Yuuri managed to rally before Yurio actually hit the button to end the call.

“I’d like that,” Yuuri admitted, a little awkward, a lot grateful, and Yurio stayed silent for another long moment before spitting out a curse on pigs and then proceeding to throw out ideas for jumps and step entries Yuuri could try. All without actually waiting for Yuuri to share his theme.

He didn’t mind, though, helplessly amused. Not when Yurio sounded _happy._ And maybe a little vindicated, but that was Yurio in a nutshell. Angry and childish and filled with spite, but deliriously happy to be proven right when it mattered. Not that he’d suggest anything of the sort to Victor, or Yurio himself – Victor would run away with it, and tease Yurio at serious danger of getting himself maimed, while Yurio would probably never speak to Yuuri again.

No one liked their defenses being blown wide open. No matter how young.

“Are you actually writing any of this down, Katsudon?!” Yurio demanded, loudly, dragging Yuuri’s attention back to what the younger skater was saying. “Wait, where are you again? What time is it there? Can you go back to the rink?!”

“Yuuko would probably throw a skate at my face if I showed up at her doorstep this late at night, Yurio,” Yuuri countered, mild. Never mind that he’d had his own set of keys to Ice Palace since he’d started to skate professionally, once Nishigori-san and Minako were willing to believe that he could judge his own limits.

“Then go get a bloody note book or something! Paper!”

“ はい , はい , ” Yuuri said, trying not to laugh when Yurio made a sound like a tea kettle going off.

 

The end result, once he actually got around to discussing thing seriously with the younger skater, turned out to be surprisingly helpful. Moreso than what he’d been playing with, till date, at any rate. Victor had been suggesting some fantastic transitions for Yuuri to use, and had been helping him train his jumps like the multi-quad fiend he was, but none of the dance sequences they’d come up with together helped quite the way Yurio’s input did. Not for the earlier parts of the skate.

It did make sense, he supposed. Yuuri had been trying to find himself again, had been trying to catapult himself to the next height. It was the story of his skating career till date, just like he and Ketty had agreed upon, but it also seamlessly merged into the tale of what he was trying to prove to himself, merging his past and his present for a better future.

Victor featured strongly in that future. All the people whom he loved, whom he wanted to hold close and cherish, featured strongly in it, and his face had burned red enough to _hurt_ when he’d been writing the letter to send her, describing what he wanted her to echo in her music arrangement  – but what had featured alongside that was the immaturity of his youth. His confusion. His need to break past into a higher tier where no one was ready to acknowledge him until he proved them wrong…

Yes. Yurio really _had_ been the best person to speak to about his free skate.

“Better now?” Victor asked him, curious, having snuck back into the room towards the end of Yuuri’s conversation, easing himself onto the bed, seeing as Yuuri was already occupying the chair before the desk.

“Mmn. Much.” Yuuri admitted, carefully passing the notepad his way. And then watched as Victor’s brows slowly rose, lifting the pad up so he could read the words Yuuri had scribbled down more carefully.

When he finally looked back at him, Victor’s eyes were glittering, much like the light of the sun reflecting sharply off the edge of Yuuri’s icicle blade. Or like a precious gemstone lit from within by some untraceable light.

“This, we can work with.” He said, unabashedly self-assured, with a thread of glee running through his voice.

Yuuri grinned back, feeling the stirrings of competition in his gut. It was only right to bring his best to the battles ahead, even if Yurio had helped him this once. It wouldn’t be fair if he didn’t make full use of the mats12 he’d been freely offered so nicely. Yurio would be offended by anything less.

*

When the placings for the Grand Prix finally came out, Yuuri wasn’t sure if he should play at being surprised or just give in to what little apprehension had been sitting heavy in his gut, after Yurio had left for St. Petersburg and then later, when Minami had mentioned him in his tweet.

(Which he still hadn’t responded to, much to both Victor and Phichit’s exasperation, but he’d been putting it off. Embarassing situations with over-exuberant kohai did that to him.)

Yuuri had gotten used to recognizing what would be the more lucrative side quests in his time in SAO, and his time at Detroit had only made that sense of his sharper. Well, not side quests, exactly, but other _opportunities_ to pursue. Whatever you called them. What Yuuri meant was… he’d figured out at least part of the mechanics behind when a new story arc or quest would open up, sometime in those two years he’d spent, locked away in the death game. He’d learnt how to recognize _patterns._

While he never really got returns the same way as he would have, in the game… it did mean that he couldn’t say he was surprised he was being given the opportunity to skate against Yurio in competition, instead of in tiny little games where Victor claimed he would spend more time teaching whoever managed to impress him more. This way, he would be going to Russia as Victor Nikiforov’s _student_. This way, Yurio would get the opportunity to make a good attempt at curbstomping him – never mind that Yuuri had a lot more experience or that this was Yurio’s first year in the seniors.

Victor was, of course, _delighted_ with the turn of events _._

“Your home ground and my home ground! It’s like a dream come true, Y _uu_ ri!” Victor was saying, half swooning, half caught up in unapologetic humor. Because the situation _was_ humorous. And Yuuri had enough of a nasty sense of humor that he could admit to it freely. He was willing to bet that at least 50% of the fans that Victor had in Russia currently hated Yuuri for snatching him away. And now he had to go and skate in competition before those fans, not to mention the judges who might very well be just as irate about Victor abruptly leaving the international circuit as a skater to coach instead.

At least Yurio would get the chance to face off against Yuuri earlier than expected, since everyone was expecting him to reach the finals _somehow._ Wouldn’t he be overjoyed.

“Rostelecom and the NHK!” chanted the triplets excitedly, “Mama, phone! We need to tweet it!”

“Oh, it’s not like other people wouldn’t have found out and said something already,” Yuuko sighed, and then promptly dropped down to peer over their shoulders to watch Lutz type after Axel grabbed the phone Yuuko had handed over and shoved it at her sister.

“Rostelecom’s going to be here before you know it, Yuuri, think you’ll be ready in time? And the NHK’s right after, too…” Takeshi mused seriously, once he was done laughing at his wife and kids.

“What? Ah,” Yuuri wheezed out an awkward laugh, slumping in his seat, and earning himself a swat on the shoulder from Victor that had him jerking upright again while Takeshi laughed at him too.

“Don’t be so worried, Yuuri. It’ll be _fine.”_ Minako declared easily, hiccupping a bit over her bottle of plum wine. Yuuri stared her down until she pushed the bottle his way as a peace offering, much to Mari’s amusement. He pointedly ignored it, instead turning to stare blankly at the TV screen until his father reached over for the remote so he could switch channels to something more interesting.

His mom, who had to have been a saint in some life, quietly guided the people hovering around the table a little further away. And away they went, though not without shooting him wry glances as they stood up and relocated.

“Is this something to be worried about?” Victor asked abruptly, and Yuuri blinked, slowly coming back to himself.

“No, not really. I mean, they just declared where each of us is going to skate, that’s enough reason to worry, but not for any reason other than the regular competition jitters.” Yuuri returned blankly.

Victor stared him down, brows raised. Yuuri stared back, trying not to fidget in place.

“What?” he mumbled finally, and Victor… sighed, slumping a little in place himself, setting an elbow to the table so he could lean his face against his fist.

He didn’t look as excited as he’d been a moment ago, Yuuri noted a bit guiltily, but it was probably for the best. Yuuri felt excited and apprehensive and oddly resigned all at once, and while having Victor bouncing off the walls without noticing what Yuuri was going through might have been _amusing,_ it wouldn’t exactly make it easy for Yuuri to calm down any sooner. He’d still be able to train, but… It wouldn’t help anyone if he got too lost in his head and skated into the boards or something.

“Yuuri,” Victor sighed, “It would help if you told me what’s got you looking so uneasy.”

Yuuri twitched, and wondered how he was supposed to explain that watching the world setting into a suspiciously clichéd pattern that could only end in discomfort for him really wasn’t helping his anxiety. But Victor’s patient stare made him sigh a little himself, shuffling closer to the table so he could lay his head down on it, forehead pressing into the wood of its surface.

“I’m not confident about my free skate yet. I know we’ve got time, Rostelecom doesn’t happen till the 13th of November - and we came up with a program that feels right, and it fits the music well, but I’m still not skating it at its best. My gala skate isn’t all that great either.” He said instead, and ignored Victor clearing his throat awkwardly. Deciding on his gala skate had been tremendously awkward all on its own10. “Maybe I’m just getting antsy, because I’ll have to face up against Yurio and Minami-kun.”

Victor hummed thoughtfully at that, frowning a little as he considered Yuuri’s words. Yuuri wasn’t really surprised when Victor turned back on him with a wide smile, once he was done thinking.

“All that means is that you’re serious about your competition, Yuuri~ Won’t Minami-kun and Yurio both be happy if they hear about that?”

“ _No.”_ Yuuri said harshly, jerking upright so he could snatch away the phone that had made an appearance, fast enough that Victor was left blinking, opening and closing his hands as though he hadn’t yet registered where his phone had disappeared to.

He heard Yuuko laugh at something Mari said, distantly, but it was hard to really focus on anyone or anything else when Victor was staring at him so directly, playful smile still pasted on his face even while his eyes seemingly glowed with intensity, laser sharp.

“Yuuri,” he said, voice cheery though Yuuri could hear a harder undercurrent in the tone, “don’t you break down over _training_ when you’ve spent the last few months convincing me that you’re secretly a training monster disguised as a mild mannered skater.”

Yuuri _sputtered,_ unable to refute that, and Victor’s hard stare gentled rather abruptly.

“And I’m here for you to skate with, after all. We’ve still got time. If you’re nervous about how your programs feel, all that means is that we run through them again and again until you’re confident.”

And it’s just as easy as that, for him. Yuuri took a shaky breath, not sure what he was supposed to do with how soft Victor’s expression looked.

“Okay,” he said instead, not moving away when Victor cautiously reached out to pat his hand, fisted at his side. “Okay, let’s do that.”

“Hurray for the start of competition season,” Victor said blandly, and Yuuri had to huff out a laugh.

“You nerds ready to come join us for dinner yet?” Mari called out, her voice easily cutting through the bubble of peace that had managed to surround them during their discussion. They both started with surprise, then traded wry grins before pushing themselves to their feet.

*

**@katsukiy wrote:**

_Will see you at the NHK, Minami-kun._ 頑張ろう11! 

__

#gp2015 #nhk cup #i really don’t want to remember my lohengrin but #let’s see how yours goes minami-kun

 

Yuuri nodded to himself, and then had to force himself to actually go through with it. He flopped over with a groan once he was done though, laughing a little hysterically when it earned him a yelp from Vicchan, who got half squashed beneath him on the bed.

“That’s what you get for hovering beside me,” he muttered, but he obligingly got out of the way when his overgrown pup wriggled in place trying to get free.

Makkachin, somehow the more polite between them for once, having stayed on the ground, simply nosed at his stomach once he moved close enough to the edge for her to reach without actually climbing half onto the bed, making him squeak with another laugh, her nose managing to jam into a more ticklish spot.

Not much longer left, now. It felt like posting that tweet settled something that had been restless within him, ever since Minami-kun had first posted it. This entire summer leading up the Grand Prix had felt weird, if he were being honest with himself. But in a good way. He had to admit at least that much to himself.

He levered himself back upright, getting  his feet back on the ground, and chuckled when Vicchan promptly clambered onto his lap, panting happily up at him before peering over his knees at Makkachin, who immediately set her snout down on Yuuri’s knees too.

Yuuri pet them both with a helpless smile, turning it on Victor when he peeked in through the open doorway.

“Saw your tweet,” he explained, lips parting in a charming grin, and Yuuri rolled his eyes, tilting his head a bit so the other man understood he was welcome to come take a seat on the bed too.

“You were so _sweet,_ Yuuri. What did the kanji mean?” Victor asked him happily, bouncing forward, and Yuuri’s smile simply broadened, looking back down at both the dogs.

The bit of excitement that had been building ever since he’d heard the announcement fizzed like a lit rocket in his chest, trying it’s level best to rise above the other emotions it was mixed in with, and it reminded him enough of the best parts of the lead up to a Clearing event that the smile on his face grew teeth for a split second before he tempered it, not wanting to alarm Victor or the dogs.

 “I must be mad,” he said out loud, suddenly, perfectly mild, and laughed at the questioning whine that managed to get out of everyone surrounding him. Victor no less an overgrown puppy than Vicchan and Makkachin.

Yes. It had been a good summer. And for all that he’d been training with low level anxiety to surpass himself all through it… There was no avoiding that he actually _looked forward_ to seeing how the season was going to go. He couldn’t wait to get started.13

 

* * *

 

1: お早う – Ohayou|Mornin'

2: Yes yes, I know the senpai-kouhai thing is specifically Japanese, I can see Yuuri mentally assigning the elder/junior respect thing this description, even if he only calls it that inside his own head. I mean, Phichit would probably be delighted and call Yuuri ‘senpai

3: This is probably going to make a majority of you go, ‘wtf are you _on_ Adel that makes no sense!’ Bear with me, friends. While I can only conjecture that canon!Yuuri’s _Lohengrin_ probably had some embarrassing connection to being a knight while Victor’s his princess or something, no worries. Asuna’s knight-like enough. I doubt any of you who’ve seen/read the SAO arc would argue with me on that. Yuuri decided to be melodramatic and base his mental characterization on the ‘stories’ of Asuna protecting Kirito from all those beater accusations he used to draw in SAO. I’m bending SAO canon a bit here, I suppose, but this was too adorable a mental image for me to not stick in. And let’s face it, Kirito would probably cheer on Knight!Asuna before anyone else. Even if that dropped him into the role of damsel in distress. *snickers helplessly*

4: 行ってきます- Ittekimasu | I'm leaving | I'll be back

5: …I’m very tempted to write a side story for this scene. And seeing as I’ve already posted the interlude, I don’t see why I can’t attempt this as well! In _Victor’s_ pov. XD

6: Sure, keep telling yourself that, Yuuri. If it weren’t obvious, everyone, Victor is still largely clueless about what’s going on with Yuuri. The only difference is that he’s actually trying to be more observant than he was in canon, if only to make sure that he isn’t trampling over a bad trigger by mistake. Or, if he is, to make sure that he can actually do something about it. This is less concerned-boyfriend and more an uneasy first timer coach reaction at this point, btw. But seeing as Victor is verging on head over heels or something close to it by this point, who’s to say that it isn’t some of the former too? *snickers*

7\. Лучик – Little sunbeam. _Luchik._  

8: Before anyone gets up in arms over this – the announcements for the GP placements happen in August here. Am I fudging the announcement dates a bit? _Yes._ I’ve been told that they should technically happen in May.

9: заткнись – shut up! In the ruder, more provocative sense – zatknis’

    свинья – pig, swine, etc. Our boy’s being _rude,_ yes – swinya

Since it got brought up in conversation with a friend – the reason why Yuri calls Yuuri Katsudon and pig in this ‘verse is because he happened to see Yuuri pigging out on Katsudon on one of his cheat days, or whatever you call them. The ‘Katsudon is my eros’ scene never happens in AHoB; instead, Yuri decides to call Yuuri katsudon because he likes Katsudon way too much. And calls him pig because he _knows_ that Katsudon’s got pork as a main ingredient. Yuuri never got as badly out of shape as he did in canon here, so the overweight buta jokes don’t happen either. Hope that explains why Yurio’s still using the same nicknames even if the sequence of events weren’t the same as in canon!

10: This is going to be elaborated on in a side story, rest assured.

11: 頑張ろう - Let’s do our best - gambarou

12: mats – short for materials, or items. The stuff you might use to level up your weapons or equipment in a game

13: I was imagining Yuuri getting all kitted out to go and slay something gigantic, at this point – except he’s one of the giants in AHoB, right. Oh well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:** The main ones for this are (i)Yuuri goes through a mildly dissociative episode, but he recognizes it as such and takes steps to handle the situation and (ii)Victor appears to be stifling himself in the worry that he'll unintentionally hit one of Yuuri's triggers. In the spirit of this fic's unreliable narration, keep in mind that this is _only what Yuuri thinks is happening_ \- Victor is choosing to watch what he says and how he reacts because he believes it's best if he does so. No social stifling involved.
> 
> ***
> 
>  **AN:** Okay, wow, those were a LOT of notes for this chapter, weren't there. Here's hoping they didn't bore you! You'll have noticed by now that I switched over to using Kanji and Hiragana in this chapter for the Japanese that shows up in the narrative. This is an experiement - please tell me whether or not the switch made an impact on your reading experience, and which you prefer if you have a preference, and I'll edit accordingly.
> 
> The wait between the Interlude and this chapter was relatively short, so! Did you enjoy this return to AHoB!Yuuri's POV? *grins* I'm surprisingly satisfied with how this chapter went, even if it took me forever to navigate, but I want to know whether _you_ liked it. Was the relationship development for Victuuri good? Was Yuuri salty enough? How about Yurio and Minami getting their turns in the spotlight, if in a very different way from canon?
> 
> Also, haha, the big one - Canon Divergence! I definitely threw a warning up on Tumblr about it, but I know many of you aren't be following me there. Did you see it coming?
> 
>  **Remember, Kudos and Comments are very welcome!** RL slows me down, but I read everything you send and I will definitely get back to you in time. If you want an immediate response or reaction from me, come find me on Tumblr! I tend to be more immediately active there in terms of response.  
>  I actually managed to get back to everyone who commented on the Interlude, this time around, and can I just say the response to it blew me away. You awesome people you, reacting to the SAO side of things in a predominantly YOI crossover! *offers up cookies and cuddles for everyone*
> 
> \---
> 
> For anyone interested, the next new AO3 post from me will be: a tumblr prompt from my backlogged works that's an AU crossover between YOI and FMA, fondly called the EdRi 'verse by **[@ayahne](https://ayahne.tumblr.com)** and myself. Go check out Aya's blog, she's fantastic. 
> 
> You can find me **[@adelmortescryche](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com)** \- come by and say hi! I don't bite.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Blades Once Held](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16124126) by [SilentKnight369](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentKnight369/pseuds/SilentKnight369)




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